Of Blood and Fire
by xXUsEdXx
Summary: "Have you ever been afraid of something only you can see?" -Rated for safety
1. Prologue

_I found this old gem in a notebook shared among my two girlfriends and I. Hopefully you guys like it because I had to do some slight revisions_

* * *

Heavy breathing escaped from a human female, her heart galloping wildly within her chest as she pushed her body to its physical limit through the dense forest. Sweat collected from her temples, trailing down her face, her neck, slicking her as the exertion exhausted her, her body begging for a reprieve. However, she knew the dire consequences for even considering it. Her eyes darted behind her, fear and determination glowing within their irises before she made a sharp turn through narrow brush.

Her ears could pick up the distorted cackles, aroused exhalations and heavy footfall that were gaining on her with each second. _No!_ She refused to fall prey, refused to go down without any semblance of a fight. She pushed herself into the forest's clearing, looking this way and that, before the crash of the bushes caused her to spin around with a soft gasp as her pursuers had caught up.

Sinister laughter escaped throats of three large, burly beings. Their eyes were respectively yellow, red, swamp green and glowed with delight and bloodlust. Their flesh from a distance seemed leathery and scale-like at the same time. Horns varying from two to four protruded from their disgusting heads. The human's eyes flickered to the three of them, exhaustion seeping into her bones.

"Such a delicious-looking human," the middle one, the largest of the three, purred sickeningly. She didn't step back in spite of her wish to do so. "You third-rate demon trash ran all this way just for a human?" she taunted, her words hindered by her labored breaths, sweaty strands of her hair in her eyes. The monsters advanced menacingly toward the female before the two crumpled to their knees with fierce wails, as if assailed by unimaginable pains. One of the demons snarled, lunging for the human, who seemed so intent on the other demons that when the unaffected one sliced a claw through her side, her concentration broke as a scream left her lips.

Her body crashed to the grass, her hand pressed against the gaping claw wounds that shredded her flesh. She attempted to crawl away weakly, but the demon's claws hooked into her ankle, breaking skin, piercing muscle, shattering bone. Her eyes flew back in horror at the demon, who displayed rows upon rows of sharp fangs.

"You're not going anywhere."


	2. Shades

_So then. Here I am, back with another fanfic. It's been a while since I've seen and read YYH, so I remembered how badass it was. This one is kind of AU, taking place a few years after the barrier went down. This is probably going to be one of my most darkest fanfics ever. And yes, I changed the summary so it fit with the dark theme of this._

* * *

The barrier between the Makai and Ningenkai had gone down. Demons and humans were coexisting. There seemed to be no need for the Spirit World to even employ spirit detectives to solve demonic cases any longer. It was a time of peace between species that may have finally found the calm after the storm.

Yet there were no words to describe the macabre crime that had hit so close to home to the former spirit detectives.

Yusuke Urameshi bit his lower lip hard when Koenma had come to his ramen stand to inform him of an old friend's death. At first, Yusuke was in disbelief; surely Koenma wouldn't pull a stunt this sick. But the somber expression in his former boss's eyes proved that this was no joke.

It was then that Yusuke had called Kuwabara, Kurama, and had Enki send Hiei from the Makai to meet him. They were in Yusuke's home now, Keiko at his side with her eyes red from tears, as the ex-spirit detective exhaled a heavy breath. "Koenma's been to see me," he began slowly, waiting for the news to not catch in his throat before he spoke his next words. "Kari's dead."

Hikari "Kari" Tsukiyomi was a very dear friend to Yusuke and his friends for her ready smile and kind demeanor, in spite of the fact that she had a temper when necessary. She was no demon of any kind; she was just a human girl who had stumbled into the world of demons unintentionally when a stray demon that attacked her at her most vulnerable when the Reiki Tantei saved her. Yusuke could see the degree of shock on his friends' expressions: Kuwabara's mouth fell open, his dark eyes wide at the news; Kurama looked absolutely stricken, his own emerald eyes going wide and his face paling; Hiei's expression was stoic, but the caustic fire apparition was the one Kari was most closest to of the four of them. The sudden news, Yusuke could see in Hiei's eyes, was devastation.

"How?" Kurama's voice was soft, his emerald eyes fixed on some vague middle distance as he folded his hands in his lap. Yusuke fought down an urge to scream as Koenma had relayed details of Hikari's death. No. It wasn't simply "death". "She was murdered," he spit out, his brown eyes narrowed into slits as a fire burned inside of his body. "Koenma says the task force had heard of some weird demonic activity near where she lived and when they checked it out, her place was the only one that was touched. Completely ransacked. There was a trail leading toward the woods and Kari…" Yusuke fought down a lump that was constricting his throat. Kuwabara raised a hand to stop him, his eyes glistening when he muttered, "Kari was trying to fight them…?"

Yes, Koenma had mentioned that Kari must have fled the demons attacking before she was killed. Yusuke nodded and that was the answer Kuwabara needed.

"Whatever demon or demons they were, they brutalized her. She never stood a chance." Hiei's own voice was a growl, simmering anger underlying his cold tone. The Jagan master had read Yusuke's mind, had flipped through the mental pictures Yusuke had when Koenma delivered the news. "Brutalized may be even putting it too light," Yusuke muttered. "Kari's body was shredded. Blood was everywhere. Koenma's got evidence to believe that she was tortured horrifically, to the point where she would have been screaming in agony, had the assholes not slit her throat." That was the icing on the cake for Yusuke. Someone took the time to kill Hikari, and for what? She hadn't been involved with them since the Chapter Black job and she never uttered a word as to why her sudden withdrawal from them was.

"There was nothing those goons of Koenma's could have done? They were there, right?" asked Kuwabara, his hands clenching into tight fists. He had taken a role of an older brother type with Hikari and Yusuke could only imagine what his friend and former rival was feeling.

"Kari had to have been…" Kurama trailed off and Hiei gave off a grunt of irritation. "Neither of you can even say it now, can you? Hikari is dead and, frankly, she must have known it would come because of associating with us."

"Hiei," began Kurama firmly, but Yusuke felt another flare of irritation.

"You saying that Kari was _asking for it_ , Hiei? Is that it? Because I know that's bullshit coming from you!"

"What is it that you want to happen, Yusuke? It was too late for her when we told her everything there is to know and she knew it was a matter of time. Unlike you and Kuwabara, the girl was no fool."

Yusuke's mouth snapped shut, his molars grinding together painfully. Keiko's expression was completely wounded before she murmured, "What about Sanzeris and Gia?"

The four males froze then. Sanzeris "Zeri" Myoji and Gia Hanabi had been Hikari's very best friends. Zeri and Gia knew about demons and Spirit World, as Hikari could never keep her friends out of the loop. They were the only anchors Hikari had in the world. Gia was a bold girl with hair dyed blonde with purple bangs. She always butted heads with Yusuke, but she got along fairly well with everyone and was Hikari's staunch defender whenever the latter female had become particularly withdrawn. Zeri was more quite, but always spoke her mind. The three girls were usually outside of the loop of Yusuke and the others, but always managed to catch up as soon as they were all in one room again. The remaining two knew that Yusuke and his team made enemies who would go after those closest to them, but were tougher than most. However, it did leave room for worry.

If Hikari was targeted purposely, it had to be a demon or a group of demons with a very bloody vendetta. It meant that Sanzeris Myoji and Gia Hanabi were not safe. "Spirit World wanted me gone," Yusuke muttered, folding his arms over his chest. "But if demons were able to track Kari down and kill her, they'll do the same to Zeri and Gia."

"Then we must bring them here at once," Kurama said, his tone resolute. "It would be beyond any doubt that they've already heard that Hikari is gone."

"So we're babysitting these females because of renegade demons that killed one girl." Yusuke could practically hear Hiei rolling his eyes in sarcasm, but it didn't stop the temper that bubbled so near the surface. "You know as well as we do that Gia and Zeri could possibly be in trouble if we left them alone without some kind of warning. Either that or they'd storm up here demanding why we didn't bother telling them some psychos are gunning for them."

"It isn't my problem, nor is it yours any longer." With that, Hiei flitted off.

A tense silence hung over them before Keiko broke it with silent sobs, tears falling down her cheeks in a steady rainfall. Yusuke went over to her side and hugged her, unsure of what to say to comfort her. Hiei was right; technically, it was no longer Yusuke's concern about demonic crimes. He wasn't a detective anymore.

But the crime had happened to someone who was everything to him and his friends. That was something he could never let go unpunished.

* * *

The next morning, Kurama had brought Zeri and Gia the next day, both girls dazed with grief. As soon as they caught sight of Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Keiko, they went to embrace them stoically. The girls were trying hard not to cry, which only made the situation worse for the male who brought them into Yusuke's and Keiko's home. "I still can't believe it," Zeri whispered softly. "Who would do this to Kari? She'd never hurt anyone."

"It's because we're involved with you guys, isn't it?" Gia asked coolly, her violet eyes half-mast. She wasn't addressing solely in regards to Yusuke, Kuwabara, Hiei, and Kurama; she was addressing their whole friendships in a slightly accusatory tone.

"Yeah." Yusuke's voice was heavy with grief, his own eyes still red rimmed from crying with Keiko last night. He looked to Gia and Zeri, at their detached expressions, and his mouth set into a grim line. "But I swear, I'll find out who did this. I'll find them and give them back every ounce of pain that they gave Kari tenfold."

"I know," Zeri said softly and Gia took her friend's hand. The much bolder of the two females looked toward Kurama. "I figured you would stay out of this, fox. You got your stepdad's company to worry about, right?"

"This is true, yet Hikari was our friend. It feels…numbing to know that she was taken from us." Kurama would have been blatantly honest about how angry he was that Hikari was taken from these two girls and his friends, but he didn't want to frighten them. Youko stirred with hot fury inside of him, the belligerence growing at the fact that the human girl continued to hover in her state of limbo without justice. Kurama was more or less a confidante for Hikari and was highly aware of the fact that she wasn't one to talk about her feelings very easily. Even so, he also wasn't honest about the fact that he and Hikari had stayed in touch after she had left to live her life away from them. It wasn't easy to get her to open up, but something she had said as her parting words stayed with him.

The fox hadn't told Yusuke or Kuwabara yet, but his latest correspondence with Hikari via letters had worried him. She was usually open in her letters with him, but the very last one—dated just two days before her death—had some information that may have been a clue as to her being targeted purposely. Kurama knew he would have to unveil this, yet in his mind, he didn't want to cause more turbulence that already stirred them all and darken the cloud of grief and pain that hovered over them.

A familiar demonic scent lingered outside and Kurama was sure that Hiei was outside, listening. He wondered what was running through the fire apparition's mind. Hikari had been fairly close with Hiei, enough that he tolerated her presence, but she had never pushed her luck. Hiei was a demon used to his solitude and maintained barriers that even Kurama couldn't breach in all their time knowing each other.

Zeri and Gia sat on the couch and Keiko had emerged from the kitchen with cups of tea. "I figured this might help a little," she murmured to them. Zeri smiled slightly in appreciation as she inhaled the steam from the cup of tea handed to her. Gia nodded stoically, her eyes closed, as she gripped her cup of tea tightly in her grasps. The silence was getting heavier by the second.

"Have either of you talked to Kari before…?" Yusuke trailed off, his eyes on the two girls occupying the couch as Keiko sat on the arm of the loveseat situated diagonally from them. Zeri shook her head, her light brown hair falling over her shoulder from the movement. Gia ground her teeth together, a muscle ticking in her jaw. "Yusuke," she began in a voice of steady fury, "do you have any idea how it feels, knowing that someone you're supposedly close to couldn't even come to you with the slightest concern?"

"What do you mean?" asked Kuwabara, looking at Gia.

Gia's eyes sharpened like blades. "You guys can be so stupid. Haven't you ever wondered why Kari maintained her distance for almost two and a half years?" she asked with the barest inflection.

"What in the hell are you talking about?" Yusuke bit out.

Gia had a silver tongue, but she had never before seemed this vicious. "Look, I don't know how much you thought you knew about her, but Kari had her reasons for being so withdrawn. The fact is, she kept something from us and I can bet that's the reason she died."

"You seem sure of this, Gia," observed Kurama. "I would figure you would be sensitive about this, especially with how detached Zeri has been." His green eyes flickered to the brunette, who jolted when her name was spoken. Gia turned her head to Zeri. "Zeri?"

Zeri lowered her gaze to the tea. "Don't direct this at me," she murmured softly. "It's bad enough to lose someone and then have an opinion of how and why they were taken from us."

"Zeri, you knew Hikari the longest, haven't you? She never got in touch with you?" Keiko whispered.

Zeri shook her head. "Not once. But before she became so…well, you know…she was with Gia and I, remember?" Her dark eyes flickered to Gia. Gia nodded. "Yeah, before you guys took out that one guy, the one who wanted to make the giant hole between our world and Makai. We were all at my place and Kari just sort of…seized."

"Seized?" Kuwabara and Yusuke chorused.

"She had a seizure?" asked Kurama, raising an eyebrow.

"No, not an all out seizure. She just sort of…blacked out with her eyes wide open. Then she started freaking out and she had run out the door. That was the last time we ever saw her," mumbled Zeri. "She was so pale and she just mumbled something to herself…"

"Has Botan guided her soul into the Reikai?" Kurama turned to Yusuke.

"Dunno. I haven't seen her yet," Yusuke replied, crossing his arms at the mention of the bubbly, blue-haired guide. "Though if we are going to get to the bottom of this problem, if she hasn't taken Kari's soul, we can figure out what happened."

"Then we should go to Koenma, right?" asked Kuwabara, raising his eyebrows. "He should be able to let us, right? Since Kari's our friend."

"Perhaps. However, Yusuke's no longer a spirit detective and as such, he may not be able to ask for such a thing. I'm sure Koenma even giving details of how Kari died was the extent of courtesy," Kurama said, averting his eyes toward Yusuke. Yet he wanted to know the truth of the matter from the girl's soul if it was possible. He could sense that his friends wanted the truth as well. When he shut his eyes, Hikari's cryptic last sentence in her final letter drifted into his mind.

" _Have you ever been afraid of something only you can see?"_

From his place outside, Hiei's crimson orbs opened halfway. He was aware of Kurama bringing the other two human girls who knew the one that they had lost.

The one they lost. Hikari Tsukiyomi, the human girl who had the audacity to try to become annoyingly close to him. It annoyed Hiei even more so to think that the girl had succeeded in her endeavor to try to understand him.

Hiei knew that Kurama had kept in touch with Hikari even without the use of his Jagan eye. While the fox was clever in his own right, Hiei could easily sense it. Concern was Kurama's favorite human trait and the girl's sudden disappearance from them all sparked an attempt to reach her.

However, the fire apparition had sensed something within the few moments where the girl had sought him out. He had sensed a rising Reiki, uncontrolled, fighting to reach a higher scale. Hikari had a sixth sense that wasn't potent as theirs and her two friends, and they all had known this. Yet something had changed within her that caused her to be taciturn even around Hiei, who had taken the cake in not being the most loquacious.

Out of his own volition, Hiei had used his Jagan to try and probe the girl's thoughts with use of telepathy and was shocked to find barriers barring him from doing so. Her friends were right to be concerned; she was fiercely trying to hide something and if Hiei couldn't even wrench an answer from the recesses of her mind then something had to have been wrong.

And her expression… even on a human, Hiei had never been so unnerved by one lowly human girl's expression and was not quick to forget it in spite of his biting comments from the day before. Her long, ebony hair framing her face, the expression upon it was grim, stoic, her lips a thin line. Her eyes—a strange, solid ember, like fire—weren't shining in that odd way of hers; they were dulled exponentially, unfocused on the now.

They were the eyes of the dead. And it had shaken something deep inside of Hiei that he kept locked away even from him himself.

Her words were just as chilling, enough so that Hiei had been surprised to feel an acute shudder race down his spine. _"So that's it. It's in your eyes."_

 _What in all the hells was_ _ **wrong**_ _with that girl?_ was his thought.

 _ **It's in your eyes...**_

 _What in the hell did she see?_

 _ **Have you ever been afraid of something only you can see?**_

"What exactly were you capable of, girl?" Hiei growled, anger heating his blood at not having the answers.

What irritated him even further was that the one who could answer the questions could never speak for herself again.


	3. Stains

_The color was everywhere, staining all it touched in its likeness._

 _It dripped from deep gashes upon pale skin, soaking into ebony locks that had spread upon the grassy forest floor. The dull, fire-colored eyes seemed transfixed to the sky as the color continued to stain her skin. The color stained her slightly parted lips, yet no breath passed them._

 _The grass was cool to the touch of the splayed slender fingers, and yet not once did they twitch. Yet the color streamed over the frail digits, staining them in its likeness._

 _ **It's so cold…so…cold…I can't…**_

… _ **breathe…**_

 _The green beneath was becoming dyed the most dark, most horrific, most deeply…_

 _ **Red.**_

Yusuke inhaled sharply though his teeth as he awoke in the middle of the night, sweat beading his flesh, shooting upright in his bed. Keiko was asleep beside him, oblivious to the fact that Yusuke had awoken.

With a barely audible groan, Yusuke scrubbed a hand over his sweat-slicked face, shutting his eyes. All he could see in the darkness beneath his lids was Hikari's torn body and yet, he heard her voice. It was faint, soft, the echo reverberating to his bones. He could see her dark hair strewn among the green of the forest, her eyes wide open, and blood staining her body, her hair, the grass. Ice shredded through his veins at the sight that he opened his eyes, pushed himself from the bed, and went to the kitchen.

His body jolted when he was aware of another presence in the living room, but relaxed when it was familiar blonde tresses. Gia sat on the couch, her violet eyes gazing out the window, her teeth furrowed into her lower lip. Her focus snapped when her gaze flickered to Yusuke.

"You still up?" Yusuke asked, scratching at the back of his head, strands of his black hair falling into his eyes. Gia nodded, her arms folded in front of her chest and let out a breath. "I couldn't sleep," she muttered. "Every time I close my eyes, I see her. I can hear her."

The former spirit detective blinked. "You too?"

She sighed heavily. "Yusuke, one of my best friends was killed. One of _your_ friends is dead. I would be worried of neither of you were seeing her in your sleep either."

Yusuke sighed before walking over to her, knocking her feet off of the sofa before taking a seat. "Look Gia, I know that Kari was yours and Zeri's best friend. She was our friend too. The fact that she was killed like that…it should never have happened," he said.

"Never have happened?" Gia's voice rose an octave, her violet eyes flaring violently as she got to her feet. " _Never have happened?!_ Kari should have never been attacked by demons and encountered you guys in the first place!" she exploded and Yusuke could see glimmers of tears in her eyes. "If that stray demon hadn't attacked her, you and the others wouldn't have had to save her and she would still be alive, with Zeri and me, and…and…!" With a strangled scream, Gia looked around furiously, her fingers flexing, before violently seizing a lamp and throwing it with all her might against the wall where the base shattered into pieces from the force.

"Gia!" Yusuke shot to his feet, grabbing her by the wrists, while Gia struggled to free herself from his grip with violent, angry shrieks. Rapid footfall came their way and Keiko rushed in, her eyes wide with concern, as she clutched the sash of her robe. "Yusuke! Gia! What's going on?" she asked.

"Stay out of this, Keiko!" snapped Gia as she fought against her tears as she continued to fight to free herself from Yusuke's grip. Yusuke gritted his teeth as he tried to subdue Gia in her outburst. "Gia! Dammit, stop!"

Gia continued to thrash and Yusuke knew that if he applied any more force, he would end up breaking her wrists. With a growl, he seized her by the shoulders, forcing her to face him. "Gia!" Yusuke roared and he heard a high-pitched gasp escape her. "Kari wasn't just _your_ friend! Do you think that we just thought it was tragedy that one of our friends was taken from us and would ignore it? Do you think that Kari didn't mean anything to _any of us_?!"

Gia was frozen as she stared at Yusuke, her chest heaving from the struggle. Then, as if something broke inside of her, the tears she fought to hold back began to fall steadily, streaking over her cheeks, as sobs escaped her between labored breaths. Her legs buckled and she crashed to her knees, an agonized wail ripping from her throat as she clung to Yusuke for anchor. Keiko tentatively walked over, her feet barely making a sound on the floor, as she slowly knelt behind Gia, wrapping her arms around her and resting her forehead onto her shoulder. Gia sobbed violently, her fingers digging into Yusuke's forearms as he knelt.

"Some son…of a bitch…t-took her from u-us, Yusuke…" The sobs escalated as Gia shut her eyes, the tears falling furiously down her cheeks. "K-Kari…she…s-she needed us…a-and we…"

"Don't," whispered Keiko, shaking her head. "Don't Gia…"

Yusuke knew what Gia was getting at and, tragically, she was right. Even though Hikari had distanced herself from the people who loved her best, they hadn't attempted to at least know where she lived in order to check in every now and again. They would have known if Hikari felt that she was in danger and offered her a place to crash until the feeling went away. It broke their hearts to know that deep within them that maybe, just maybe, they would have had a chance to save her.

* * *

 _Kurama—_

 _I don't know what this feeling is. It's like I'm being watched, followed. I would walk home or to work and that feeling intensifies. It gets worse every single time. But then, I've never been this aware before._

 _Kurama, I've always wondered this and I don't know if you, the most intelligent person I've ever been acquainted with, have ever wondered this as well. Have you ever been afraid of something only you could see?_

Kurama sat at his desk, Hikari's very last letter in his hand as he reread it. It was the shortest one she had written and he had wondered why it had been so short. She hadn't even signed off as she normally had. It surprised him that he had never thought of that as concerning.

Yet the last sentence still made no sense to him. Fearing something only he could see? Kurama only knew fear if his human mother was in danger and would strike the threat down accordingly. He didn't experience fear at what he couldn't see when he fought Karasu at the Dark Tournament years ago. So what, exactly, had Hikari meant by posing this question?

With a sigh, Kurama set the paper down, his palm resting atop it. Youko stirred within him then, that belligerent nature brewing in his core. Even while his body was Shuichi, Kurama felt as if Youko was…entitled, in a sense. There was no demonic instinct, no lust to _claim_ Hikari; it was simply the fact that in spite of her prior behavior, she chose him to be her confidante.

His teeth furrowed into his lower lip as his eyes slid closed at the thought. It seemed like only yesterday where Hikari was with everyone, playing peacemaker between Yusuke and Kuwabara on occasion, staying silent in the presence of Hiei, and conversing about nothing with him. The girl had been smiling, content. What changed?

Opening his eyes, Kurama glanced at the envelope, at Hikari's address written in her strange calligraphy before exhaling a breath.

If they were ever to get to the bottom of this, they would have to start where at where she lived.

* * *

The yellow tape appeared to gag the door to the apartment. Yusuke's eyes narrowed at the thought of the yellow clashing with the dark blue behind it.

Kurama, Kuwabara, and Hiei had accompanied him when Kurama had brought an envelope with Hikari's address in the corner. It seemed too soon for Zeri and Gia to accompany them. Yusuke didn't want to ask why Hikari had been writing to Kurama, especially when she didn't seem to live that far away from the group. However, the four of them seemed to want answers for the myriad of questions that hung unspoken between them all. They unanimously agreed to go to Hikari's apartment in the evening, when people weren't straggling outside with questions about the ransacked apartment.

Yusuke reached forward, between the tapes, and turned the knob. The door wasn't locked and it opened with a soft creak, revealing a darkening entryway with some scattered debris littered on the floor. He went in first, maneuvering through the tapes carefully in hopes to not ripping it and rousing suspicion of the police. Kuwabara lumbering in behind him, followed by Kurama, then Hiei flitted in. Their footsteps were light though the floor creaked as they made their way in the apartment, spreading out to find some kind of clue, some kind of answer.

Claw marks tore into the walls, the wallpaper shredded beyond comprehension. Wooden shelves were toppled, scattering an array of books and binders about the floor. Furniture was shredded, thrown over, the signs of struggles so glaringly obvious that it turned Yusuke's stomach just to even look at the mess.

"Yusuke." Kurama's voice was oddly emotionless and Yusuke turned to see the redhead picking up a small, wooden box that was on the floor. When he approached, Kurama kept the box's lid opened and pulled out a small slip of paper. There were words written on the tiny slip in Hikari's familiar calligraphy, but her handwriting looked off. It seemed as though she had just scribbled in a fit of inspiration—or madness. Kurama read the words on the paper carefully, but Yusuke was aware of the wavering timbre in his voice.

" _Eyes._

 _Voices._

 _The spectre hangs over us, waiting and waiting,_

 _To steal. To break. To kill."_

"Spectre?" Kuwabara asked, his lips turned down. Hiei folded his arms over his chest, his eyes closing. "The stupid woman sounded completely insane," he commented. "What in the hell was this gibberish she wrote?"

"Could she…just be researching or something?" Yusuke asked but Kurama shook his head before turning the paper to his friends, the words facing out. Beneath Hikari's scribble was a sketch of what seemed to be the Western equivalent of a grim reaper, a skull hidden beneath a hood, yet the hands were clawed like most demons. Kurama removed another slip of paper from the wooden box that contained only one line:

" _I can see the flames of hell swallowing us all, and the shadow stands over the screaming masses."_

A loud, squelching noise jolted the four males as the sound faded. Kuwabara was the first to break the tense silence. "Do you guys feel that?"

"I smell…blood," muttered Yusuke right as the squelching rang out into the empty apartment again, only much more slowly. Deliberate.

Hiei moved then, his expression icy, as he inhaled. Yusuke was right; the scent of began to permeate the air and while the fire apparition was far used to carnage in the demon plane to be bothered by it, this scent bothered him. Kurama drew in a sharp breath, feeling Youko becoming agitated within him. The scent was becoming heavier in the air and it was agitating them all in different ways: Kuwabara's sixth sense was spiking; Yusuke was grinding his teeth; Hiei's fingers curled into his palm; Kurama could feel a rising belligerence. The four moved as the noise became louder and louder before Yusuke chanced a glance to the window that was streaming in the last of daylight.

His face paled. "Shit!"

The face looking back at him from within the glass, silver bloodstains upon the face and neck. The eyes were the only pools of darkness upon the face, claw marks into the neck and cheeks. Yusuke recognized that face before it faded.

"Urameshi?" Kuwabara called him back. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Yusuke opened his mouth before something shattered to the floor and the four turned their attention to the sound only to freeze for the barest of heartbeats.

A small, square, wooden frame with shards splintering around it was at the feet of a pale body, a soul. Yet it wasn't just any soul.

The soul was that of a young woman with lifeless hair that fell to her waist. The body was translucent all around, the skin shredded like meat, stained with silver at her legs, torso, neck, face. The darkest points of the seemingly pure spirit were her eyes: the deepest pools of black that began to drip a dark silver down her ripped cheeks. Even with the entirety of her body mangled beyond recognition, they were aware of whom this spirit was.

"Kari?" Yusuke asked, his voice colored in disbelief. The spirit tilted its head, the silver that continued to rain from her black eyes dripping into air and vanishing before even making contact with the debris-strewn floor. The scent of blood was overpowering and Yusuke could tell that the scent was coming from the soul in front of him and his friends.

 _"Why are you here?"_ Her lips didn't move, yet Hikari's voice echoed throughout the room, her expression unchanging, and her appearance still horrific from her death. _"Why did you come? Why are in this place?"_

"We had to know why you died," Kurama answered her, the emerald of his eyes flecked with gold.

 _"Why did you_ **have to know** _? What liberation is there for you?"_ Hikari tilted her head in the opposite direction, the only discernible movement. A strange feeling enveloped the four males, twisting their insides, a cold seeping inside of them.

 _"Why are you here?"_ she asked again, her voice echoing off the walls. Her arms moved this time, the hands pressing onto the wall behind her as her head lolled sickeningly. _"Why?"_

"Kari…?" Kuwabara made his attempt to communicate with the girl and her pitch pools fixed on him, her body frozen. "It's us. Your friends. Remember?" he asked.

The spirit was silent, the head rolling again before she stopped again. _"Yusuke…Kuwabara…Hiei…Kurama…"_ she crooned questioningly, her expression no longer grim. For a flicker of a heartbeat, the mangled face cleared to show the fair skin and ember eyes they remembered when she was alive. _"Guys, what are you doing here?! You have to leave!"_

"We can't do that, Hikari," said Kurama, reaching a hand out slightly to her, palm turned upward. "We want to know who killed you. Who took you from us and why?"

 _"I can't…I can't tell you! I shouldn't even be here and neither should any of you!"_ Hikari gasped, her eyes widening and the faintest scent of fear tinged the scent of blood. _"I can't protect any of you if you go digging up things that ought to stay buried!"_

"What things?" demanded Yusuke suddenly, stepping forward. "Why do you think you have to protect us?"

 _"I can't, Yusuke…I can't!"_

"Dammit, Kari, tell us! Who killed you?!"

 _"No, no, no!"_ Hikari moaned and the room seemed to quake. Her head began to roll on her neck again. _"You have to leave, you have to go! If it catches you in its gaze, it'll hunt you down!"_

"What is _it_?" Hiei asked abruptly. He had listened while the other three tried to get the woman to tell them who killed her, yet she just unveiled a vital piece: it was some being, an _it_ that seemed to be shadowing her afterlife. If Hikari revealed what this being was, Hiei sensed that maybe, just maybe, it may give them the answers that they sought. When the spirit let out another moan, her head twisting, Hiei hissed, his crimson orbs narrowed dangerously. "Woman, focus, what is this _it_?"

The fair skin and ember eyes faded into the pallor, mangled skin, black eyes, and silver bloodstains. But now Hiei could see it from where he stood—and was sure the three with him could as well from the intakes of breaths. The lips weren't moving because they were sewn shut and another unearthly moan filled the air. Her eyes were fixed on the space behind them and Kuwabara shuddered.

"Guys, something else is here," he said shakily. Yusuke turned around to see nothing but when he turned back around, he saw Hikari's spirit flit away and when Kuwabara exhaled, the second presence had to have faded.

Hiei was the first to speak. "What in the hell was that?"

"Hikari's soul hasn't gone to the Reikai. She is still lingering here," replied Kurama, his expression solemn. When Hikari's soul had shown vestiges of her former self broke through the prison of her outward appearance, she hadn't answered who had taken her life and why; yet when Hiei asked what was the _it_ she had meant, she was unable to say.

Or, rather, she couldn't. The moment she mentioned _it_ , the clarity of her soul was back to its tainted state.

 _"I can't protect any of you if you go digging up things that ought to stay buried!"_ Why was she trying so hard to protect them, and from what?

"We should get out of here," Kuwabara muttered. "There's a creepy vibe in this place." He glanced around.

"I agree," replied Yusuke, feeling a shudder race up his spine. "Let's get out of here." He turned to head out of the door, sensing his friends following behind him.

* * *

When the night had fallen, Hiei had moved of his own volition to the forest behind Hikari's apartment. Something had bothered him, given him more of a questions than answers.

 _"If it catches you in its gaze, it'll hunt you down!"_ The girl couldn't even say if it was any class of demon. Once the moment she receded into that tainted form, her lips sewn shut, he could sense an external force for those supernatural stitching, something far more powerful.

From within his cloak, Hiei withdrew a slightly torn photograph. The human girl, surrounded by the two other humans she knew well, was beaming up at him. It was a moment frozen in time when the girl was alive and had seemed more herself than in her last moments of life. Holding onto a bit of something so sentimental was unlike him, save any instances of his sister. But this human girl, she was important to the humans he had become so acquainted with as well as his former partner-in-crime.

 _"I shouldn't even be here, neither should any of you!"_ Her words rang through his mind as he walked through the forest, scenting her blood. He was familiar with her blood; yes, he knew all to well…

" _Ah…?" Hikari barely flinched when Hiei's blade pressed against the flesh of her neck. He gritted his teeth in irritation. This girl was the ire of his existence, with her solid, fiery eyes calmer than any storm in the Ningenkai or Makai. It annoyed him, infuriated him, that such a human was unnerved by his strength._

" _Hiei…" The girl whispered his name and Hiei only obliged in pressing the blade harder against her skin, breaking the flesh. A thin drop of blood began to rust on the silver of his sword. Her eyes remained fixated on him. "You're…trembling."_

 _His hand did tremble, only slightly, yet it was perceptible to the girl. Hiei could not kill a human, yet he never lusted for someone's blood so much so than this mere child. When he lowered his sword from the girl's throat, he still didn't sense fear in her. He couldn't smell the fear on her. She dared to raise her hand, her fingers close to his face and his hand snapped to grip her wrist. "I'll break your tiny little bones, human. Do not touch me," he snarled._

 _A flicker of hurt passed within her eyes, but a gentle smile graced her lips. It was soft, yet…sad._

 _Was this insignificant girl…pitying him?_

 _When he released her, her hand dropped. "If that's what you wish, Hiei."_

 _Stupid female_ , thought Hiei as he reached the clearing where the scent of Hikari's blood was strongest. Farther in his field of vision, he could see the dark red of dried blood that stained the grassy floor.

This was where she died. This was where the girl experienced her last moments, her last breath. In his twisted mind, he wondered when her throat was slit; whether she screamed before she was left unable to; whether she fought back, knowing she'd lose hopelessly. What had possessed her to flee this far, he didn't understand. Hiei walked forward, closer to the dark bloodstains that were Hikari's last mark of her physical life. He inhaled, the scent of blood stinging him. It was the same scent that Hikari's spirit had when she had become visible to them and it further agitated him just as much as it had in her apartment. When they all had parted ways, Kurama took the girl's wooden box with him in order to figure out if any of her mindless writings were linked to what she had told them—or couldn't tell them. Being the spirit she was, Hiei couldn't even reach the girl's mind through telepathy if he had wanted to.

Hikari's face in the photograph seemed to be taunting him then the more he looked at those fiery eyes and that oddly gentle smile. It was strange to be in the place where she was killed and to have even a sliver of her purity in such a tainted place.

Another scent hit him then, the scent of rotting flesh. Rotting demon flesh. Hiei moved slowly, barely making a sound, as the scent became stronger and he ventured deeper into the forest. Just beyond a small brush lay three corpses of large demons, their eyes bloody holes. Their blood mixed together in a noxious way that tainted the air with its too-strong, metallic smell. Their heads were blown wide open, their torso ripped open like if they were nothing but raw meat, their insides shredded into jelly.

Hikari's blood was on their claws, their fangs, overpowered by the smell of demon blood. _Her killers._

As much as it pleased Hiei to see the corpse of her killers, it irritated him as their deaths were too…less than their crime. Yet…the fear that mixed with Hikari's scent wasn't in regards to these demons who lay in this brush. It was for something much more, something that terrified her and had a hold over her in her afterlife.

* * *

"You should have contacted me straightaway!" Botan snapped, her hands on her hips as her eyes flashed angrily at Yusuke and Kuwabara. Gia, Zeri, and Keiko weren't at the house when they returned and Yusuke presumed that they had gone to take their minds off of things. At least Yusuke didn't have three others yelling at him.

"What did you want me to say, Botan? _Hey, uh, you freaking missed a ghost?_ " he asked sarcastically, with a shrug of his shoulders.

Botan stomped her foot. "I've been looking for her soul ever since she died! She hadn't come to the Reikai on her own and Koenma was concerned!" she snapped. "The fact that you went to her apartment and saw her without even thinking of contacting either of us-"

"She didn't exactly stay and ask us if we wanted tea!" Kuwabara told the guide. "Kari's soul is in a bad way, Botan, a really bad way! The stuff we found at her place could give us a clue on why she died!"

"Why she died shouldn't even be a concern!" Botan's eyes shimmered with unshed tears. "She was our friend, I know, but she was taken from us! And even now she won't let us help her in her grave!"

"Aren't you the freaking guide to the Reikai?!" Kuwabara demanded, agitation tensing his body. "Ain't it your job to make sure she gets to Reikai safely?"

"I've been unable to find her spirit since she died. She hasn't come to us either. I wish I could say that we've gotten close, but we haven't!" cried Botan, her bangs in her eyes, her tears falling.

A tense voice broke the silence that hung after Botan's words. "What?"

They turned. Keiko, Gia, and Zeri had returned and Gia was the one who had spoken, her hands in shaking fists, her violet eyes burning with anger. "What the hell do you _mean_ you haven't found her spirit?" she hissed.

"Gia," Yusuke began but Gia snapped. "Shut up! I'm talking to _her_!" She stabbed her index finger in the direction of Botan. Her eyes were narrowed furiously. "You can't find Kari's spirit?! What the fuck are you doing, sitting on your ass?!"

"It's not that, Gia, it's not that at all!" Botan cried, her hands twisting together. "I just…"

"Just what?" growled Gia, advancing toward Botan. "Just what!"

"Gia, please," pleaded Zeri, her eyes widening in shock.

"Gia…" whispered Keiko, attempting to calm the upset Gia by reaching for her. In her anger, Gia turned on Keiko, reaching to shove her away before a hand grasped her wrist tightly. Angry violet eyes clashed with calm emerald.

"Kurama," Zeri gasped, surprised at the redhead's sudden appearance at the door. Gia gritted her teeth, trying to wrench herself free from the male's grip. "Let me go, fox!" she snarled.

"I will do so, only when you calm yourself. Do you wish to sully Hikari's memory with violence?" asked Kurama softly, keeping his gaze on Gia. Gia's eyes narrowed, yet Kurama could hear her heart beating rapidly. When she clicked her tongue in submission, Kurama released Gia's wrist. "What the hell do you want?" she muttered.

"I came to have a word with Yusuke and Kuwabara." Kurama's green eyes flickered to Yusuke and Kuwabara, who nodded. "We're going to need a minute," said Yusuke quickly, hoping to stave off any questions or explanations.

No such luck. Zeri was the one who spoke this time. "Why can't you say it in front of us?" she asked, her eyes mournful and her teeth furrowing into her lower lip. "If it's about Kari…we…we have a right to know."

The three males exchanged glances before Yusuke sighed heavily.

"Fine. You want to be in the loop? Then park it and prepare for a long talk."


	4. Espiritus

Yusuke stabbed his fingers through his dark hair as his brown eyes were on Gia and Zeri. Both girls were sitting on the couch with grim expressions on their faces, eyes resolute in their decision to hear what needed to be said, Botan standing near the arm of the couch with Keiko.

Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Kurama exchanged glances before Kurama spoke first. "In order to find out why Hikari was murdered, we went to her apartment," he said.

Gia raised her hand up, her expression darkening just a bit. "How did you know where she lived if she hasn't told anyone of us where she…" she trailed off. After letting out a breath, Kurama answered, "I had been in contact with her the past few months."

"And you haven't told us this!" snapped Gia, her body tensed for a fight before Zeri grabbed her arm to steady her.

"Look, we can all rail about this some other time," interjected Yusuke, folding his arms over his chest in irritation. "Fact is, when we got to Kari's place, it was completely trashed. Her stuff was ripped, thrown, laid out. It was obvious she fought back. Or tried to."

"Then we saw her ghost," added Kuwabara, visibly suppressing a shudder at the thought. "Her ghost is in a real bad way. Like all covered in ghost blood and her eyes were really dark."

Botan seemed to jerk at Kuwabara's words, her eyes wide as saucers. "Her ghost was covered in blood?"

"Is that supposed to mean something?" asked Yusuke dully, looking at the guide with confusion. Botan's expression turned grim as she looked at the former spirit detective. It was the only time since the dark tournament since he had seen that kind of expression on Botan's face.

"By the sound of it, her ghost has been tainted. If that's the case, then…" Botan trailed off, chewing her lower lip.

"Then…?" Zeri prompted softly, her eyes on Botan.

"I can't take her into spirit world if someone else has a grip on her soul," said Botan, closing her eyes. "Especially when she can't be found."

"It may be deeper than that," murmured Kurama, his bangs in his eyes. "When we were at Hikari's apartment, I've found some things she had written. We are unsure whether it was stemmed from sanity or not…"

"Hikari wasn't crazy!" snapped Gia suddenly, glaring at the fox as Zeri had a grip on her wrist. Her violet eyes were blazing with fury as her windswept bangs fell over her right eye. "Hikari was saner than any of us! Don't talk about her like that!"

"I wasn't insulting Hikari," Kurama told her gently, his emerald eyes solemn. "I would be the last to do so. I am merely stating that we do not know her state of mind when she parted from us and up until she died."

Breathing heavily, Gia sat back against the soft couch, her eyes still alight with anger. Zeri looked to the redhead, her dark eyes unfathomable. "Kurama," she murmured. "What did Kari write, exactly? I mean, you guys all remember Kari had a leather notebook she would always write in?"

The mention of the famous notebook brought simultaneous smiles to the group. It was true, Hikari was always writing in it and tying it with a rough, thin rope with a silver key attached at the end. The smiles faded slightly when Yusuke asked, "Did she ever show anyone what she wrote?"

Zeri and Gia shook their heads. "She never showed us," Gia mumbled, interlocking her fingers against her lap. "She guarded that notebook like her life depended on it. She never left it alone with anybody and would kill anyone with her eyes who tried to read it."

"Wait a second," Kuwabara said slowly, apprehension growing in his dark eyes. "We never saw that notebook at Kari's place. Everything was thrown all over the place, but we would have seen that notebook; we all know what it looks like."

"You think the demons that killed her have stolen it?" asked Botan with caution in her tone. Keiko looked the guide. "If Kari wouldn't tell us what was wrong, she probably wrote it down, didn't she?" she asked.

"I haven't seen her notebook while we were there," Kurama murmured, his tone low and thoughtful.

"It's because Kari's too smart to pull something so amateur," Gia said suddenly, her eyes gleaming with comprehension. "If that journal hid anything that anyone would have looked for—which I think is impossible—Kari would have hidden it somewhere that wasn't where she lived."

"You really believe that?" asked Yusuke skeptically, raising his eyebrow just slightly at Gia. The blonde girl nodded. "I really do believe that. If we piece together what we know about her up until she died, we know our girl. She would leave us clues, but she wouldn't leave anything in easy view of someone she wants to hide it from," she told the former spirit detective with conviction in her voice.

"Something I've been wondering," breathed Zeri. "Kari had this photo of the three of us. Did you guys find it…at her place?"

Kurama, who had noticed Hiei take something from the messy wooden table after Hikari's ghost had vanished. It was a slip, slightly torn in the corners, and Kurama had a feeling that was the photograph Zeri spoke of. "Perhaps…it is in Hiei's possession."

"Where is Hiei?" asked Botan.

"After we split, he said he was going back to the Makai," answered Kuwabara gruffly. "That bastard hasn't changed a bit since the barrier came down. Still cold as ever, especially when we talk about Kari."

"It may be because out of us all, Kari felt like…closer to Hiei," said Kurama softly, remembering how the fire demon seemed to be less than hostile in Hikari's presence. As intuitive as the fox was, as curious as the others were, no one truly knew what the relationship between Hikari and Hiei was when they were truly alone.

* * *

Hiei had returned to the Makai after discovering the bodies of the demons that had killed Hikari. Inside the Forest of Fools, Hiei sat on a high branch, looking at the photograph of Hikari, Zeri, and Gia held so tightly in his hand. His crimson orbs were trained of Hikari's face. What was it about this foolish girl's death that agitated him so? While Hiei loathed humans, loathed how weak the species were and yet had a slight higher threshold of tolerance for them, and this girl's death continued to haunt his mind because he knew her. Gritting his teeth together, the photograph burst into flames and Hiei released it, watching as it curled to ash and the girl's face was no longer a physical reminder. Or so he thought.

 _"Do you want to forget me, Hiei? When I bared my soul to you…?"_ Her voice echoed within his mind, soft, wounded. It startled him. It _infuriated_ him.

"Begone, girl. You are dead," he muttered to himself before flitting back to Mukuro's moving fortress. Hiei did not need the memory of the girl to stay with him, did not want to hear her voice. Yet, just like when they met, she was annoyingly attached to his side and he could see her ember eyes watching him. He walked within the moving fortress, not even bothering to alert Mukuro of his return. The female demon was strong enough as it was that she could easily sense his Youki without exerting any type of effort.

 _"Hiei…"_

He stopped. Hikari's voice was louder this time, echoing through the hall. His eyes narrowed dangerously as his hand itched to grab a hold of his katana. A movement caught his eye and he unsheathed his blade and spun around, nearly impaling Shigure. The older demon looked at Hiei curiously. "What is going on with you?" he asked. "Is there a reason you are so agitated?"  
"…No," Hiei muttered, sheathing his katana. None of the other demons, except Mukuro, understood his ties to the Ningenkai had been because of Yusuke. Shigure would have never understood why a mere human seemed to be everywhere he looked.

"Mukuro has been looking for you," said Shigure, crossing his arms. "She wants a word with you on why it took you so long to return back to the Makai…"

Hiei turned to give the demon a bored look before his eyes widened. Behind Shigure was that tainted spirit of Hikari Tsukiyomi. He could see her even more clearly than ever, the ragged stitching upon her lips more pronounced as the pitch black pools of what would have been ember eyes fixed on them. There was Reiki exuding from her now, more potent than ever, the silver stains darkening as she continued to bleed...bleed...

"You're getting distracted, Hiei." Shigure, the demon whom implanted the Jagan on Hiei, voiced the thought he was aware the osteopath had. It was one irritating notion that he was getting Shigure's unwanted opinion; it was far another matter when he caught a glimpse of a dead human girl in the Makai, inside Mukuro's compound. He wanted no ties to the Nigenkai and yet the one glaring knot he had been unable to unravel had followed him to his home. The spectre of that goddamned girl continued to look at him-and a glimmer caught his attention. A thin, ghostly tear fell from her left eye before she disappeared from his sight. No ghostly words, no agitating scent of blood. Merely a shadow and vapor that appeared within his line of sight before vanishing to wherever she had come, but Hiei knew better as he turned away from Shigure to find Mukuro. The girl's afterlife wasn't her own anymore, yet he couldn't put his finger on why nor did he want to. Yes, he wanted to forget in spite of the fact that the girl did bare her soul to him.

" _Here." Hikari held out the thin, black, bound book in her hand out to Hiei and the fire demon narrowed his eyes at the girl. "What the hell is this?" he asked bitingly, glaring into the eyes that so resembled flames._

 _Hikari gave him the barest ghost of a smile like she would always give him before gently shoving the book into his hand. "Just read it, okay?" she asked in a slightly exasperated way, yet Hiei could sense that the girl wasn't at all irate with him. And that irritated him._

" _Why would I want to read this? Why should I even bother listening to you?" he growled and Hikari sighed, sitting on the ground, her ebony hair loose around her shoulders as she looked at him. "Hiei," she murmured softly. "I'm not at all good at explaining my feelings. You can get your answer if you read that book. It is the physical representation of my soul."_

" _Hn." Hiei flitted up to a high branch, leaning against the trunk of the tree. Hikari didn't attempt to climb like she usually would have done, content to let him be. What sickened Hiei was that he was actually curious about this "physical representation" of these irritating girl. He unbound the book, looking at the ivory-colored pages and the calligraphy that decorated them into a small group of sentences that made no sense to him and only served to unveil how complicated Hikari truly was._

* * *

 _Hikari clutched the book tightly to her chest, her expression like stone, yet Kurama had caught the scent of her tears. The fox approached her, concern brewing within him and when he was within her vicinity, he spoke softly. "Hikari?"_

 _The girl looked back at him, her eyes glistening with tears. It was startling to see a girl with eyes like fire look as if her gaze was to be extinguished. "Kurama," she murmured just as softly, yet she didn't raise her hand to her eyes. It was if she was fighting to keep her tears inside, drowning the fire that she had in her gaze._

" _What is it, Hikari?" he asked, resting a hand onto her shoulder. Her grip on the notebook she would often carry with her tightened as she pressed it further into her chest as if she were trying to absorb it._

" _I thought baring my soul would be easier, Kurama," she whispered, closing her eyes. "I truly did."_

" _What do you mean?"_

 _She shook her head, moving away from him and back toward the temple._

" _My soul is better on paper."_

"That was how I remembered her describing that moment." Kurama had his eyes closed as he explained the last time he ever saw the notebook. "I knew she had gone to see Hiei. To be perfectly frank, I'm sure we all knew…"

"Hiei had made her cry," Gia recalled with an edge to her voice as she rested her cheek against her palm. "I was so pissed and wanted to ice him, but Kari begged me not to."

"Was there something between them?" asked Keiko softly, looking at her hands.

"Kurama, you know Hiei best." Zeri addressed the fox, gently biting onto her lower lip. "Did he…I mean, when he and Kari would part ways, did he ever say anything to you?"

"If there is one thing I know quite well about Hiei, it is that he is not the most talkative about his innermost thoughts," said Kurama with a shake of his head. Yusuke glanced at him with a raised brow and Kurama felt as if Yusuke could sense the lie, in spite of his Mazoku blood. Kurama had remembered the agitation Hiei felt when Hikari had left his side and had confronted the fire demon about it...

 _Kurama watched as Hiei glowered at the distance from his perch on the high branch. The fox sighed as he felt waves upon waves of agitation emanating from the demon. "Hiei. Are you aggravated because Hikari isn't by your side as she normally is?" he ventured. Hiei's crimson gaze snapped to the emerald orbs of the redhead, anger burning brightly within the usually dispassionate eyes._

" _It has nothing to do with stupid girl!" he hissed through his fangs._

" _Hiei," Kurama sighed heavily, as though dealing with an impudent child, "why did Hikari leave your side in tears?"_

 _Something flickered in Hiei's eyes and Kurama had a suspicion on what went through the fire demon's mind. "You are behaving like a mated demon whenever she leaves your side, yet you cannot stand to be around her when she is in your presence. Tell me, why is that?"_

" _Hn." Hiei turned away, folding his arms over his chest. "Believe what you will, Kurama. But do not misunderstand; I care nothing for that human."_

The redhead fox felt something within his core that there was a strange gift shared between Hikari, Gia, and Zeri, something that he was acutely aware of even now, in the same vicinity as Gia and Zeri. The girls seem to exude a force that soothed demonic instinct inside of them that seemed more potent when they were particularly close to any demon or one with demonic instincts. Kurama had certainly noticed, when his friends did not right away, that Hikari was potent in soothing most of Hiei's demonic instincts whenever they reared up and lusted for blood. He had chalked it to believing that the girl was close to Hiei, in spite of the latter denying the bond fiercely.

Yusuke let out an irritated noise, rubbing the back of his head. "Sooner or later, we're gonna have to track Hikari's ghost down. That's the only way we'll get her to the Reikai right?" he asked, looking at Botan. The normally bubbly guide nodded her head. "Yes," she murmured.

"How can we track her?" asked Zeri, her eyes widening slightly.

Kuwabara opened his mouth to respond, but Kurama interjected. "It's too dangerous for you two. You should leave tracking Hikari's soul to us," he said.

"But…" Zeri breathed shakily but Gia stood up, her violet eyes narrowed at the fox. "It's not up to you to tell us we can't help you track Kari. She's not just _your_ friend, you know!" she snapped, planting her hands on her hips. "If you're going to track Kari's ghost down, we want in!"

"You realize this will be dangerous?" asked Botan, her eyes shining with worry. "What if her ghost attacks you? With what you three explained, she should have attacked you if she had been particularly violent."

"Kari wouldn't hurt any of us!" Zeri cried angrily, standing up also. "Gia's right, we're going to help you guys track Kari's ghost!"

"You two aren't gonna give that up, will you?" asked Kuwabara with a groan. Gia and Zeri exchanged a look before looking to the three males.

"We're helping. Kari's important to us," Gia said firmly. "And that's all there is to it."

A lamp fell over and shattered, jolting everyone present. Yusuke, Kuwabara and Kurama sensed a strong amount of reiki on the lamp and a familiar tang of blood coated the air. "She's here," Kuwabara muttered right as the lights flickered and a soft voice whispered through the air like the wind. _"So here you are…"_

Keiko let out a scream which jumpstarted Yusuke's protective instincts.

The aforementioned ghost was against the wall, swaying, as she dragged her fingers against the walls. Her head was twisted to the left side, her long dark hair falling into her face. _"I have been looking for you…to give you a message…"_ Her voice was echoing eerily around them, sinking into their pores like knives.

"K-Kari…?" Gia whispered shakily, moving toward the bloodied apparition. Kurama seized the girl by her shoulder. "Do not get close. Something is wrong."

A high, cold laugh rang out, in a distorted voice as the spirit faded into nothing. It sent visible rippled throughout the rooms. _"I've found what the little pest longs to hide from me…"_ hissed the voice. It spoke only once more, stabbing ice into the hearts of Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama, Botan, Keiko, Gia, and Zeri. _"Now she will be punished…"_

When the voice faded, a thud broke the silence. Zeri had collapsed onto her knees, holding onto Gia for anchor, her eyes wide and vacant. "How can this be…?" she whispered.

"Zeri?" Kurama knelt to the girl's level, placing a hand on her shoulder to bring her back to focus. "Zeri, what's the matter?"

"Hikari." Zeri met his gaze. "Hikari's suffering. I can hear her screaming."

"How?" asked Kuwabara, shock filtered in his expression.

"I don't know…" she gasped, closing her eyes and leaning more into Gia. "But we have to find her ghost. We have to find her or else…"

When Zeri's voice died off, an echoing scream resonated into the air, cracking with pain and agony that stopped their hearts and chilled their blood cold.


	5. Imprison

Zeri's face had paled considerably as Keiko brewed the girl a hot, strong cup of tea. The brunette's heavy exhalations were the only audible sounds in the room as her dark eyes dulled. Gia had sat Zeri down, chewing on her lower lip, as she remained standing. Her fingers curled into her palm, so tightly that her blunt nails broke the skin.

"What exactly did you hear?" asked Botan softly, the only one able to break the ice. Zeri pursed her lips, her hands gripping the porcelain cup so hard that the tips turned white. "Hikari screaming," she answered, yet her voice wavered with an underlying emotion. "I could hear her screaming in my head. Like she was in a lot of pain. I don't know what the feeling is, but I know deep in my bones that Hikari is suffering right now."

"This is becoming insane," muttered Yusuke in irritation at something he couldn't understand, nor wouldn't even come close to comprehending if only there was a physical villain whose face he could bash in. "Just after you saying that, we all could _hear_ Kari screaming."

"Do you think she screamed like that when she died?" asked Kuwabara, who looked visibly shaken at the very thought. Gia shook her head furiously as though trying to dislodge Kuwabara's question from her mind. "Don't even go there, Kuwabara. Please," she muttered, her body trembling.

Silence hung over the group like a heavy blanket before Gia shook her head again and walked outside. The group looked after her before Yusuke asked, "What's her deal?"

Kurama glanced at the former spirit detective before heading to the door. "I'll go speak to her," he said as he stepped outside. Gia was bent over, hands on her knees, as her body shuddered. Kurama caught scent of tears and waited a few beats before approaching Gia.

"Stay back," she called softly and he stopped, waiting once more before Gia straightened back up and wiped at her eyes furiously. "I can't fucking take this. First was Hikari's murder, then seeing her ghost, and now Zeri's hearing things? Are we seriously losing our shit right now?"

Kurama sighed heavily, his hands in the pocket of his pants. "This is all too much for us to take in, Gia. The SDF had discovered Hikari's body and we were unable to give her a proper funeral, only to realize that our friend's ghost is tainted and we are no closer to bringing her to her final peace than we are to finding her."

"Which brings me to earlier, when you said you were in contact with her for the past few months." Gia turned to look at him, attempting to glare yet the unshed tears ruined any effect for conveying anger. "Why didn't you tell the rest of us? Zeri and I, especially, since we knew her far longer than any of you."

"Hikari asked me not to," answered Kurama, his eyes fixed on Gia's violet orbs. He kept his voice steady, feeling his composure dancing on the razor's edge at the topic. He knew this answer, this _truth_ , would anger Gia. However, in spite of Kurama's own opinions of Hikari's secretive behavior, he respected her wishes because that was the only way she would continue to trust him as her confidante. "I knew, as you should know, that if she wanted the others to know her whereabouts then she would tell you or come to us all to save us from being concerned."

"But why go to you?" asked Gia softly, her eyes glimmering in muted anger. "She _trusted_ Zeri and I. She's told us more of her secrets than anyone else. After months of her acting weird, why choose you out of all of us to confide in?"

"Unfortunately, I do not have that answer." It was true. Kurama had no idea why Hikari chose him as a confidante. The fox knew he was the wisest of the group and was often the peacemaker, but he and Hikari weren't close in spite of how tightknit the group was. They conversed of course, but the conversations were never deep. After Hikari had become despondent and disappeared in her sudden bouts of isolation, Kurama was surprised to even find a letter addressed to him in Hikari's handwriting.

Gia's glare was heavier with irritation and Kurama released another sigh. "I assure you, Gia, I have no idea why Hikari chose me to confide in. She truly didn't at first during our correspondence. I had asked her where she was, as her letters did not have a return address, and she had refused to tell me for weeks before I finally received a letter with a return address. In that letter, she begged me to not tell the rest of you where she was. She did not clarify as of why," he explained.

The fire in Gia's eyes died as she closed her eyes with a shaky inhalation of breath. "Do you still have those letters?" she asked in such a soft voice, Kurama was surprised he picked it up on the wind at all.

"Yes. I had been rereading them in hopes to finding some sort of clue as to why Hikari's soul was in this state. Though I believe we all may become biased if we had put this into the hands of the SDF," he answered. "Hikari's behavior was unusual, I admit, but when she and I were writing to one another, she seemed like herself until…"

"Until she died," Gia finished for him, her eyes opening. "I have a request of you, Kurama, though you're not going to like it."

Kurama raised an eyebrow at the girl, prompting her to proceed with the request.

"Take me to Kari's apartment," Gia said. "I want to do my own once-over."

"Absolutely not," was Kurama's quick response, recalling all-to-well of the strange and agitating aura that permeated the entire living space. It riled his instincts, alerting him of danger. He was not even going to think of taking Gia to that place and to see the disarray of the final moments of Hikari's life.

"Kurama. Please," she pleaded, her eyes shining.

He shook his head. "I will not. You don't understand how dangerous it will be."

"Either you take me there, or I'll go without you." The tone of her voice proved that, yes, she would certainly make due with that promise. Kurama sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose, before exhaling.

"Fine," he told her, lowering his hand. "I'll take you to Hikari's apartment. However, do not say that I didn't warn you."

Gia crossed her arms with a faint, triumphant smirk on her face. "Yeah, yeah, something we've always told you jokers."

"What about Zeri?" asked Kurama, voicing another thought that had just occurred to him. When Hikari was alive, she, Gia, and Zeri were hardly apart; they had gone everywhere together. He knew that if Gia were going to Hikari's apartment, she would be bound to bring Zeri.

"I'm not bringing her," Gia answered, her eyes dulling a bit. "Zeri took Hikari's death the hardest; she's not ready for that…"

"She proved to be well capable of handling the matter."

"That's because she's numbed herself. That's not handling it, that's running away from it."

"I think you give her less credit than what's due."

"How do you know that, Kurama? You've known us—what—going on three years?"

"That's more than enough time. Wouldn't you agree?"

Gia didn't bother gracing that question with an answer and instead opted to shake her head, a sign that Kurama recognized as her conceding the fact that he had a point and wouldn't admit it.

* * *

Koenma sat at his desk, frowning down at the Hikari Tsukiyomi case file. Botan had returned from the Ningenkai and had reported to him that Yusuke, Kurama, Kuwabara, and Hiei had gone to Hikari's apartment to find clues on why she was murdered. The Prince of the Reikai had hoped that the group would only want the murderers caught and punished for taking Hikari's life, but his hopes hadn't been that high. To harm any dear of his former group of detectives would be a death warrant signed and executed.

However, there were things about Hikari even her dear friends didn't know, things Koenma knew from reading her file on how she lived.

To start with, when the girl had been attacked and met spirit detective Yusuke Urameshi, her surname had sparked something in Koenma's memory. He was sure that the name "Tsukiyomi" was involved in a past case, yet he couldn't put his finger on it—until he read the names on Hikari's family tree.

Hikari's older sister, Chika Tsukiyomi, was her only family. The sisters were estranged from their parents and, according to Hikari's file; Chika had died when Hikari was a tender ten years old. That was when Koenma's memory finally landed on why the surname was familiar. There was a reason that family name rang repeatedly in his head. "Botan," Koenma called, his tone as brisk as it never had been before.

The peppy, blue-haired guide had come into his office immediately, dressed in her pink kimono. "Yes, sir?" she asked, her pink eyes wide.

"There's a soul that I need to speak to," he told her, his eyes still on the file on his desk, his eyes stoic.

"Which soul?" asked Botan, frowning slightly at the prince.

"Chika Tsukiyomi."

"Chika? As in…?" The guide paled, her eyes widening more. "Oh, Koenma, you don't mean...She hasn't crossed into paradise after all this time and we've been monitoring her activities! Why would you want to talk to her?"

"Because, Botan, Chika Tsukiyomi might fill in some gaps on the reason why her younger sister was suddenly murdered six years after she was." Koenma's tone was firm and Botan knew that this matter was far too serious for him to just leave be.

Botan nodded before leaving the office. She had an inkling of where Chika would be—and to, hopefully, finally convince the woman to come to the Reikai for judgment.

* * *

"This place is a wreck." Gia's expression was dark as she surveyed the apartment.

Kurama had taken her to Hikari's home, in spite of being a tad against the idea to begin with. He noticed Gia's reaction shifted from disgust to horror, her violet eyes taking in the torn walls and the strewn debris. "What could they have been looking for?" she asked softly.

"We've asked ourselves that when we were here," murmured Kurama, his stomach twisting at the sight in spite of it being his second time in this place. Hikari had lived here, slept here, and isolated herself here—yet she decided to reach out to Kurama in her moments of solitude. Gia touched the torn wallpaper, her eyes softening. "It feels like she's here," she mumbled. "Like she's with us."

The redheaded fox looked at her. "That's why being here is dangerous," he said. "Hikari's soul is not well."

"Because that voice or whatever is hurting her," hissed Gia, her brows drawn in anger and helplessness. "You were there, you heard Hikari's voice screaming in pain. You, of all people, should be sympathetic to that fact."

It was a jab and he knew it. She targeted his humanity in her frustration and he couldn't fault her for that, not when he understood implicitly how she felt. Gia was helpless to save her friend and was hurt that Hikari had turned to someone she wasn't even close to instead of the one of ones she trusted above all else. No, Kurama couldn't blame Gia or Zeri for their feelings—especially when before he and Gia had left, Zeri was an emotional mess, bursting into tears at feeling Hikari's pain, that she had to be calmed by Keiko.

A sudden spike of unfamiliar energy coated the air that had Gia and Kurama turned their heads to see a spirit standing by the window. Her body was silver, hair in lank, loose waves. A thin, pearly tear trailed down her transparent cheek.

There was something familiar about this spirit, yet they were aware of never seeing her before. Only when the spirit was aware of being watched and turned to look at them as when they were struck dumb with surprise. The character of the face strongly resembled Hikari, yet there was a much older, regal bearing about her. Ghostly strands of her hair were in her face, but she stared the demon and the human down. "I know you," she murmured, her voice softer than anything they've ever heard. Gia's body began to tremble, her eyes wide as she took in the spirit of the woman.

"You have us at a disadvantage in that regard," Kurama replied calmly, reaching to place a hand on Gia's shoulder in hopes to calm her. He could feel her trembling and he squeezed her shoulder in reassurance. Unlike the tainted soul of Hikari, this spirit meant no such harm; he could sense it.

"You're two of the group that was always with Hikari," the woman said, drifting away from the window to the middle of the room as she looked around the apartment. "She was often lonesome here, yet I believe she was in contact with you."

"You know Hikari?" whispered Gia, her voice catching in her throat. Kurama caught the scent of tears that were beginning to brew in her eyes and he hoped Gia, the strongest of the three human girls close to the group, wouldn't crack in grief.

The woman nodded. "Of course I know Hikari. She is my baby sister."

If shock had been a physical action, it would have been a brutal slap to the face. If there was one thing that none of them had known, it was that Hikari had an older sister. The woman must have noticed the surprise in their eyes, for she continued in that soft, gentle voice of hers. "I take it Kari has never told you."

"Kari didn't have a sister. There's no way…" Gia breathed softly, stepping forward. "How do we know you're not just some ghost who decided to follow her everywhere?"

"I will not deny that I've watched over her, but I am not surprised that Hikari hasn't told you of me." The woman turned away, her ghostly fingers interlocking together. Her expression was somber, yet there was a faint smile on her lips. "I expected such of her. Hikari has always been a private person, as I am sure you knew."

"Then you are aware that she is…" Kurama trailed off, his eyes fixed on the woman.

"I am aware that demons murdered my sister, demon fox." The woman's hands dropped, her tone terse as if she wasn't in the mood to beat on the bush. "I hate myself for not being here to protect her, but my sister had put wards to block high-level spirits, not demons."

"What do you mean by that?" Gia's lips were pressed into a thin line as she gazed at the woman with glistening eyes. "Tell us who you are!"

The woman's eyes flickered to Gia as she rest a hand over her chest. "My name is Chika Tsukiyomi. I was also murdered by demons six years ago, when Hikari was ten years old. I was nineteen at the time of my death and I refused to go to the Reikai because my sister was all alone." Chika bowed her head only slightly. "I know who you both are." She leveled her ghostly gaze towards Kurama. "You are Kurama. In your human skin, you are known as Shuichi Minamino in spite that you are the infamous King of Thieves, Youko Kurama. Yes, my sister was quite wary of you, and with good reason I am to understand.

"And you-" Her gaze went to Gia "—are Gia Hanabi, one of my sister's closest friends. Hikari always spoke highly of you and the Miss Sanzeris Myoji. My sister treasured you being in her life and being the shield she should have had from me." There was sorrow in Chika's eyes, sorrow tinged with regret, as she kept her gaze on the two.

"I hope you do not mind my forwardness in using your first name, Chika-san, but we have questions to ask about Hikari's murder and why her soul is the way it is," said Kurama, internally reprimanding himself for using the spirit's first name in spite of the honorific attached to it. However, it was important for them to retrieve this information quickly in case Hikari's tainted soul returned to her home while she lived and attacked them with her energy.

"I do not know specifics about my sister's murder. I did say she put up wards and I was not present," replied Chika, her voice low with resignation as she turned away. "My sister would have been powerful, had our family not been cursed."

Gia frowned. "What do you mean, Chika?"

Chika's expression twisted into confusion, her sharp eyes narrowing only slightly. "My sister didn't tell you anything, did she? When she had asked me to leave her be while she was with you all, I thought she would tell you everything. I was wrong to assume this, I see."

"Chika-san," Kurama interjected. "Why would Hikari be powerful? What is this curse you mentioned?"

The woman sighed as she drifted forward and Gia backed away, yet moved closer to Kurama. At an arms-length distance, the resemblance between Chika and Hikari was irrefutable; they were definitely related.

"Our entire family was cursed ever since the first of our ancestor's made a pact with a powerful entity," whispered Chika, her eyes hooded. "Cursed to lose our minds if we live longer than we are supposed to, like Mother and Father. I could control it, but my sister hadn't yet blossomed in that ability and so she and I had run away in hopes that I would be able to keep my sister safe."

"What does this have to do with Hikari's murder?" asked Gia apprehensively.

"The entire Tsukiyomi family had been considered Prophets, yet we weren't any such thing. We didn't see futures of other human beings. We saw the shadows of the world."

"Demons?" inquired Kurama.

"Entities," clarified Chika. "The Tsukiyomi family saw the darkest entities that haunted humanity since before demons began to devour us."

"What did your ancestor do to cause this curse?"

"I only know that a pact was made with one of those entities, the strongest of them all, who haunted the family for generations. Our parents are insane; they will not help you find the answers you seek. The entity haunted me for the final moments of my life, and yet it left me be once I was murdered by demons."

Gia and Kurama exchanged a glance. Chika's explanation filled in a few holes of Hikari's behavior before her murder. Gia and Zeri had said that Hikari began to mumble about things, which in turn caused Kurama to think of the spectre and strange wordings on the piece of paper he had found. Hikari was seeing the entity that had haunted her family for generations. Yet the only reason was a curse that not even Chika knew the exact detailing of.

"I would tell you more, but unfortunately, I know nothing else," Chika said, interrupting their thoughts. "You will have to dig into our family's history and maybe, just maybe, you will find the answers you are looking for."

The woman tensed, her eyes flying to the door right as a familiar voice rang out. "I had a feeling you would be here."

"Botan?" Gia and Kurama turned around as the guide walked to their little group, her eyes solemn as she met Chika's gaze. "Hello, Chika. I had a feeling you would be here," she said.

"I'm not going." Chika's voice became cold, her eyes narrowed. "I will not go to Reikai, not with my sister's soul in a bad way on this earth."

"You have been long dead, Chika-san," Kurama told her. "You no longer have a reason to remain bound to this world."

It was the wrong thing to tell her. The windows shattered as a strong energy spiked throughout the room, slicing the air. Chika's ghostly locks were flying in the charged air, her eyes burning with fury. "I am bound to my flesh and blood. I am bound to this world as long as my sister's soul is suffering on this world. I will never rest in peace!" Her voice was rising in her anger, that it was almost hypnotic. The scattered debris rose into the air and launched at the three. Kurama, relying on impulse, drew a rose from his hair, changing it into the Rose Whip to cut the debris down before it made contact with either him, Gia, or Botan. With a sudden distraction, Chika had vanished. The only traces she had ever been there and not a product of some mass hallucination was the faint Reiki that was steadily fading after her disappearance.

"What the hell?" Gia whispered after a moment.

"I should have warned you both about Chika. She is very volatile and refuses to cross over," sighed Botan, rubbing the back of her head. Gia whirled around to face the guide and her facial expression was pure anger. "You and Koenma knew Kari had a sister?" she asked.

"Of course we knew. I was trying to guide Chika to the Reikai, but she refused and kept running away! Koenma had paperwork upon paperwork after her murder and Hikari, the poor girl, was only a child!" cried Botan defensively, her pink eyes wide. Kurama moved to interject immediately, sensing Gia was on the verge of a temperamental collapse.

"Botan, Hikari was ten years old; I am sure her sister's murder would stand vividly in her mind. However, now is not the time to dwell on hidden information and to be angry about it," he chided.

"Kurama-" Gia began indignantly, but Kurama cut her off.

"Gia. I know you want answers. I do also, as well as Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Hiei. We cannot lose our heads right now. You know we can't afford to."

Gia bit her tongue, her eyebrows drawn, her purple bangs in her eyes. "Fine," she bit out. "I know Kari needs our help and now, so does Chika."

"Chika will only cross over with Hikari," said Botan, her voice solemn. "She's made that very clear. In her entire life, all she was devoted to was her sister."

Kurama's eyes narrowed in thought. He didn't want to voice it aloud, but Chika reminded him of himself, prioritizing his human mother and aspects of his human life as the most important things. Chika, however, prioritized Hikari, made Hikari the only reason she lived and devoted herself to being her sister's protector. It also begged the question of how Hikari survived for six whole years and what this family curse was that had taken the last of the Tsukiyomi bloodline.

"We should head back," Botan said to Gia and Kurama. "I'm sure whatever Chika told you, the others might want to know."

"Yes, though after our first perusal of Hikari's home, Hiei had gone back to Makai. When he decides to pay the Ningenkai a visit, I will be sure to inform him of what we know," added Kurama. If he knew Hiei as well as he thought he did, Kurama knew the fire apparition would come to pay him a visit sooner or later. Hiei may loathe humans, but Hikari seemed to be the only exception to his complex code of conduct as well as his demonic instinct.

Gia shook her head. "He's not going to give a damn, fox," she told him before she moved toward the exit of Hikari's apartment. Botan looked after the girl, her expression changing from serious to sympathetic. "She still takes Hikari's death quite hard, doesn't she?" she asked.

"As unfortunate as it sounds," answered Kurama in a low voice.

"What do you think needs to be done?"

"Even if I were inclined to do anything about her grief, I wouldn't. It's something she and Zeri, as well as the rest of us, must deal with."

* * *

 _He could scent that metallic, agitating tang of blood even when he didn't desire to. It was so achingly, agonizing, irritatingly familiar that he wished he could rid himself of the madness._

 _He could see her now, free from her taint, with her fiery eyes and a mask of stone upon her face. There was no quiver of emotion in her eyes; in fact, it was the same expression she had given in within her very last moments, before her sanity was called into question._

" _How long are you going to be a spectre in the recesses of my mind?" he snarled at her, longing to stain his hands red with her blood._

 _She said nothing. She merely gazed at him with those hateful eyes and he went to her, anger vibrating throughout his body._

 _When he was within striking distance, he raised his arm before he began to chastise himself. He may not be loathe to fight an opponent regardless of who they were, but within his core, he knew he could never strike her._

 _That knowledge was cemented by the fact that she continued to gaze at him, but this time, her eyes wavered with some kind of emotion. The irises flickered, glistened, and yet she barely trembled._

" _Why are you looking at me like that?"_

 _No answer._

 _Yet her next actions would shock him to his very core._

 _Soft palms rested on either side of his face, the slender fingertips tangling in his hair before he felt her lips upon his._

 _It took his mind half a moment to realize what she was doing._

 _It took the other to realize that her skin, her lips, were cold as ice._

 _He shoved her away violently, baring his fangs at the unexpected action that took place without his consent. The stupid girl dared to touch him this way!_

 _She began to change then, into the tainted form he had witnessed fleetingly in the Ningenkai and in the compound: her skin became deathly pale; her body ripped and mangled like a devoured carcass; eyes deep onyx pools; and her lips sewn shut. Her ruined visage was forever burned into his mind among the twisted bodies of those he ever slain. Her taint was a sin of her very existence, yet he felt as if it were his own sin made flesh in the body of a girl he so long wanted dead._

" _ **That is your sin,"**_ _a sinister voice murmured in his mind, not his own. It dripped with evil and he wasn't sure where the source of it was coming from._ _ **"You long for acceptance, love, and yet you push away the very creature who is all too willing to give it to you. You long to spill the blood of a mere mortal because she can and will accept all as you are."**_

 _He could see it, a being he never before witnessed._

 _It was a spectre, its face hidden beneath the hood of its cloak, yet its decaying, demonic hands had wrapped around the ruined throat of the broken female before him. The claws dug into the slit upon the flesh of her neck, drawing silvery blood. It dripped over its fingers in a steady waterfall, yet the girl's spirit did nothing to repel it._

 _That was when he saw the girl's eyes fill with tears and they fell slowly. A sign, but of what?_

" _ **This child of the Tsukiyomi blood now belongs to me. Now that I know what she desperately tries to protect, you are powerless. I will come for you all. I will spill your blood. And you will belong to me."**_

 _The spectre dragged the girl away by her throat before he could do anything to stop it._

A ragged breath ripped from Hiei's lips as he opened his eyes, his back against the rough bark of the tree in Makai. His chest heaved from the dream he had just now.

No, not a dream; a vision.

He had seen what had taken Hikari's ghost and twisted it into a broken shell of the human she had been. The girl's tears in that state was a sign of something he could not place just now, and he knew he couldn't keep this within himself.

 _The girl of Tsukiyomi blood…_ Why did that spectre seem so gleeful at the idea of having her? What was the reason for this? Why did this being, whatever it was, want to hunt them?

His mind had come up with only one answer: the girl's blood must have been tainted. Yet there was another question upon the heel of the answer.

 _Why was she tainted?_

* * *

 _I think I just made a few fangirls want to kill a dead girl -_

 _That, or you guys wanna kill me for cliff hangers._


	6. Noose

"That was insane." Gia muttered as she, Kurama, and Botan left Hikari's apartment. She appeared to be visibly shaken by the events that had just transpired, her violet eyes unfocused as she tried to internalize the situation. Kurama looked to Botan. "I believe an explanation is in order, Botan," he said firmly. "Why hadn't you informed us all that Hikari was haunted by her older sister?"

Botan jumped, scratching at her cheek. "I didn't know Chika was haunting Hikari, I just knew that Hikari was her attachment to the world and that was why she refused to cross over! Every time I would try to get her to come to Reikai, she'd run!"

"You said Chika was volatile. Have you ever had an issue like this?"

"Only once in a while, but in the end the spirits crossed over."

"Obviously one found you too chipper for that," Gia cut in icily, glaring at Botan. "Did Koenma know the entire time that Kari's had a sister?"

"Of course he did," said Botan, her tone slightly guilty, as she cast her eyes to the ground. "But Koenma didn't feel it was his place to tell everyone. It was something Hikari kept secret—the fact that she was being haunted by her cherished big sister."

Gia gritted her teeth angrily before screaming to the sky. "Dammit, Kari! Why couldn't you tell us what really bothered you?! Why couldn't you trust us?!"

Her words seem to echo throughout the neighborhood before her gaze went to the concrete, her eyes glimmering with tears. She bit hard on her lower lip, trying to restrain her sobs as her shoulders shook in her efforts. Sighing heavily, Kurama approached her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Do not keep your emotions inside, Gia. It's not good for your health," he told her gently.

"Shut up!" Gia threw his hand off of her, glaring heatedly at him. "You keep your emotions in check at all times! If anything, you should heed your own advice you raging hypocrite!" she snapped.

"Gia!" Botan gasped, looking scandalized. "That's no way to talk to a friend who wants to help you!"

"Gia's understandably upset, Botan," Kurama said, his eyes half-mast.

"Don't pretend to know how I'm feeling, Kurama! Not when you haven't shed one tear for Kari after she's confided in you!" Turning on her heel, Gia took off in a run down the street before either Kurama or Botan could react. After a few moments of silence, Botan turned to look at the redhead.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"I'm fine," he answered swiftly. Much as Gia's words wounded him—and he was a hard person to wound emotionally at the best of times—he knew it was solely due to the anger she felt inside of her.

"We should go after her," Botan murmured worriedly, looking at the direction Gia had fled to.

"Leave her be," said Kurama, closing her eyes. "She needs time to herself."

"Kurama-" Botan began, but she trailed off and Kurama was certain Botan wanted to say something, anything, but backed down for loss of words. The usually chipper guide was always quick to blurt her thoughts, but he presumed that in this case, Botan wanted to be careful with her thoughts and how they would come out. The guide worried for Gia; of course, she would. However, Gia was the type of girl to take her aggression out on something without witnesses. Seeing her crack and receiving sympathy was something Gia hated and Kurama knew it. With a shake of his head, he spoke softly, "We should return to the others and tell them we've encountered information about Hikari that may give us a lead."

Botan nodded wordlessly and the two began to return to Yusuke's apartment.

* * *

 _The darkness was suffocating, all around her, inside of her. Sanzeris felt as if she were dying, floating in some abyss that had no sliver of light. Blindly, she tried to reach for something, anything, but her fingers only groped air._

 _Inhaling sharply, Zeri turned this way and that, trying to find some way to escape the darkness. Her breath caught in her throat, her chest heaved, lungs hurting to the point where she was sure her body would be robbed of breath._

" _ **Zeri…Zeri…"**_ _A soft voice whispered, echoing in the darkness. It was a voice she recognized, a voice she missed so dearly when she knew she would never hear it again._

" _Kari?" Zeri gasped, looking around wildly. "Kari, is that you?"_

" _ **Zeri…"**_ _Hikari's voice was still so heartbreakingly soft that Zeri felt tears sting her eyes. She blindly reached out, hoping to come in contact with that familiar hand. "Kari! Talk to me, please! What's hurting you?" she called out, her own voice magnified in the abyss._

 _A high, keening scream of agony answered her, ripping through the thick, pitch-blackness. It was so sharp, so searing, Zeri felt her body freeze and pain pricking at every nerve as if she was being tortured. Her own scream mingled with Hikari's, her mind hyperaware of the feeling of something tearing her apart from the inside. Her throat was hurting, felt raw, and Zeri longed for the anguish to end…_

"Hold her down!" Yusuke panted, gripping Zeri's wrists, his face slicked with sweat. His brows were furrowed in concern and focus as Kuwabara grabbed at Zeri's flailing legs. Zeri had been asleep ever since Keiko managed to calm her from when they all heard Hikari's voice screaming. All of a sudden, her peaceful slumber was shattered and her scream pierced the air like a gunshot as she thrashed on the bed, her limbs flailing madly as though she were being attacked.

"What the hell do we do, Urameshi?" yelled Kuwabara. Before Yusuke could even answer, Zeri let out a high-pitched screech, wrenching her arms from his grip and slugging him in the face. "Crap!" he grunted, hand over his cheek where Zeri struck him before grabbing at her wrists again to still her. "Dammit! Why isn't she stopping yet?!"

Keiko rushed to Zeri's bedside, her brown eyes wide with concern as she attempted to talk to Zeri soothingly in effort to calm her. "Zeri, it's just a dream," she murmured amidst the screams. "Please, wake up."

Keiko's effort, however, was in vain; Zeri only thrashed harder, her screams escalating octaves higher than what was considered normal that Yusuke was sure—though he was no doctor— her throat was going to be raw. The thought escaped him when Zeri screamed a name neither he, Kuwabara, or Keiko expected: " _Kari!_ "

Yusuke exchanged a look with Kuwabara, feeling his insides freeze. The moment was fleeting when the door to his place opened and Kurama and Botan appeared in the doorway not a second later. Botan gasped, raising a hand to her mouth and Kurama's expression twisted into a concerned frown.

"Little help?" Kuwabara grunted from the strain of Zeri's thrashing and Yusuke gave Kurama a look that clearly said he would explain later. With a nod, Kurama strode to the bed briskly where he could clearly see Zeri fighting to free herself, though she wasn't conscious. Her scream was already at a level that would be considered offensive to his ears. He placed a hand against Zeri's forehead right as her scream faltered for a brief second and then it picked up in volume. Thinking quickly, Kurama began to use pollen from one of his many useful plants, silently hoping it worked quickly. Being close to his friends as he was, watching Zeri suffering from some night terror was enough to agitate him.

It took no little than three minutes before Zeri finally began to cease her thrashing, her chest heaving from exertion as she tossed her head to the right. Now that her head wasn't moving at rapid speed, there was evidence of tears tracking down her face. Her screams were reduced to mere whimpers as Hikari's name continued to escape her.

"Thanks, Kurama," Yusuke panted as he and Kuwabara released Zeri's arms and legs. Keiko and Botan immediately placed the blanket over the still girl. Tears were still streaking down Zeri's face, but she was no longer screeching in agony.

"What on earth was that about?" asked Botan, looking at the black-haired male with confusion in her eyes.

"Dunno. Zeri just started screaming and thrashing. Kuwabara and I held her down, 'cause we were sure she was gonna hurt herself. Then she just said Kari's name like she did just did and screamed bloody murder." Yusuke stabbed his fingers through his hair.

"Where's Gia?" Kuwabara asked Kurama. "Wasn't she with you?"

"Yes, she was. However, she was overcome with sentiment about Hikari as well and ran off," answered Kurama, intentionally leaving out Gia's outburst and completely one-sided argument with him. "However, we did find out something that may help us."

"And what's that?" Kuwabara crossed his arms. Yusuke raised his eyebrow expectantly.

"Hikari had an older sister, who was also murdered by demons when Kari was ten years old." The information still hadn't sunk in for Kurama, but he steeled himself. In spite of Gia's accusation of his lack of mourning for Hikari, he knew that someone had to keep a level head. "Gia and I had the…pleasure of encountering her spirit."

"You saw Kari's dead sister's ghost?" Yusuke asked in disbelief, his brown eyes widening. "Where?"

"At Hikari's apartment. Gia wanted to see it for herself and insisted in spite of my disapproval. I had gone with her in case she encountered Hikari." Kurama paused, took in a breath, and then continued. "Her sister, Chika, had told us that the Tsukiyomi family had been haunted by a spectre for generations. She's even mentioned that their parents have gone insane because of their abilities."

"Hang on." Kuwabara raised a hand. "Kari had powers? And didn't tell us?"

Kurama nodded and when he noticed his two friends' exchanging suspicious glances, he knew what must have gone through their minds. "Hikari never told me any of the sort in her letters. I hadn't any idea," he told them briskly.

"I'm more on the idea that Kari's parents are alive," muttered Yusuke. "Can't we just go and see if they can cough up something? Have a fit of sanity or some shit?"

"Yusuke, Hikari's parents are insane and hadn't the faintest ideas that their daughters have left home and were subsequently murdered," Kurama told him. "However, now we have information that Hikari had an ability that ran in her blood and her family had made a pact with a very powerful entity."

"Probably that scary aura I felt back when we went to Kari's place," Kuwabara chipped in, crossing his arms. "It was evil, like really dark. Bloodthirsty."

Silence weighed upon the group and it seemed to agitate Botan enough for her to try to be peppy. "Look! Just because things are turning out this way doesn't mean we have to let it get us down!" she exclaimed. When they boys didn't respond, Botan looked to Keiko hopelessly, but Keiko was silent, her eyes fixated on her hands folded in her lap. Botan almost wished Zeri hadn't had whatever that moment was, so as to try and brighten the mood. Unfortunate as it sounds, however, no one was in condition to brighten anything. It was though Hikari was a weight that they couldn't throw off until this was resolved.

* * *

Hiei had returned to the Ningenkai in hopes to get the noose off of his neck. The only person he would normally convey any type of frustration—if at all—was Kurama. The much older demon was always able to discern Hiei's particular moods, but Hiei wasn't in the mood for philosophical psychobabble. No, what the fire demon needed was some kind of answer for why the human was haunting his mind.

Standing on the branch outside of Kurama's home, waiting for fox to return, Hiei allowed himself to think of what bothered him beneath the surface. It wasn't just the fact that the girl haunted him. Ever since that strange vision he had of her, Hiei felt…exhausted. It was as if _she_ was siphoning his strength from him and Hiei despised her for it. His throat burned with bloodlust; he longed to tear his claws into flesh, to rip muscle and bone. He ground his teeth together. He was better than this, stronger than this, and the mere memory of the girl was ripping him to pieces on the inside.

When the light went on in Kurama's room, Hiei moved, sliding the window open, as he knew full well Kurama wouldn't lock it. The redhead was stabbing his fingers through his hair, looking as drawn and exhausted as Hiei felt before his green eyes rose to look at the fire koorime. "Hiei. I didn't expect you to return this quickly."

Hiei rolled his eyes. "Of course you haven't," he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest. Kurama quirked an eyebrow at him, as though sensing that something was off in the younger demon's psyche. "Is something the matter, Hiei?" he asked. Hiei glared at Kurama, unsure of how to vocalize his turmoil. _Even that word sickens me…_

 _It sickens you that the girl's feelings are affecting you,_ a voice said in his head. _You're becoming soft._

 _No,_ Hiei rebuked the voice, _that girl is meaningless. I am not becoming soft._

"Hiei." Kurama's voice was firm, drawing Hiei from his revere as he met the fox's eyes. "Something is troubling you. I can see it in your eyes."

 _ **"It's in your eyes."**_ That was what _she_ said to him. That was one of the last moment he had seen her face, when she was alive.

 _The girl was quiet as she sat beneath the tree that Hiei resided in. It was one thing for her to be silent, but she always had that idiotic notebook in her lap, writing something or other. Yet she wasn't even doing that._

 _She just sat there, staring into some distance._

 _While the silence was more than welcome, when it came to her, Hiei was agitated. The girl would have occasionally chirped some strange little thing in that gentle voice of hers. Yet she did nothing._

 _Hiei jumped down from the branch he sat on, standing in her proximity. Her scent, which was normally so floral, was…different. It was more...strange. Decaying. She turned her head, looking up at him and her expression was like stone. Her usually lively ember eyes were icy. Her lips were drawn in a thin line. Her long, ebony bangs swung into her eyes, yet loose strands framed her face._

" _Woman." Hiei kept his tone cool as he met her eyes. When she didn't respond, Hiei felt a flare of irritation. "What is the matter with you?"_

 _Her eyes seemed to have lost focus, yet become more so frostier. She tilted her head and locks of her black hair swaying with the movement and Hiei felt his insides shudder. A chill shot up his spine as he gazed into her eyes. Beneath his bandana, he used his Jagan to probe her mind and found…_

 _A block._

 _A black mass was blocking the gentle probing he began, with no weakness in the defenses. Lips drawn into a frown, Hiei glared into the girl's eyes…and surprise overtook him, showing on his face when he tried to maintain stoicism around her._

 _Her eyes…her eyes, usually so bright like flames, were dulled. She was gazing at him with eyes devoid of life, eyes that were only to be described as dead._

" _So that's it," she whispered. "It's in your eyes."_

" _What?" Hiei growled._

 _She was unfazed. "Your eyes. The things you've kept hidden, things you've endured. Your eyes are showing me everything, Hiei."_

" _ **She's borne witness to your sins."**_

A sharp pain seared through Hiei's mind and his palms pressed against his temples. It was as though his mind was on fire, but it was different from the level of comfort Hiei had with the element, with his skills in the darkest of pyromancy. This type of pain, this type of fire…it was different, darker. A low grunt of pain escaped his lips, as the pain seemed to spread further, inching to every limb. A buzzing in his ears made Hiei acutely aware that a voice was calling to him. Something grasped his shoulders and shook his roughly when he was suddenly jerked back into reality.

Kurama's face was floating nearby, concern on his face. Hiei jerked from his grasp, aware that his breaths were labored. It didn't escape Kurama's notice and it was proven when he asked, "It's Hikari, isn't it? You're seeing her?"

"How did you guess?" growled Hiei, glaring to the wall as if it could possibly catch flame from his irritation at all of this.

"Zeri is enduring the same thing," murmured Kurama, moving to sit at his desk chair. He interlocked his fingers, folded them in his lap. "I went with Botan to Yusuke and Keiko's apartment to tell them about the new information Gia and I have found out about Hikari. We hadn't taken Zeri due to her…sensitivity."

Hiei scoffed, the sound noticed by Kurama, whose eyes narrowed only slightly. "I am not certain of it, but it seemed Zeri had an attack. She was screaming and only one name escaped her once she calmed."

"Hikari?" Hiei asked before thinking. Shock filtered on Kurama's face, but he nodded. Silence hung between them before Kurama ventured forth with his own questions. "Hiei…are you being haunted by Hikari?"

Hiei glared sharply. "Does it matter? The girl is trying to reach out to someone. I would believe that she would have reached out to the one she was in contact with before her death." He didn't understand why it bothered him that Hikari had only contacted Kurama before she died, why it agitated him so that she had once confided in him and yet couldn't do so.

Kurama seemed to pick up hostility in Hiei's voice but chose to ignore it before proceeding with his train of thought. "Hikari had never confided in me the facts that she had an elder sister and had abilities we weren't aware of."

 _Abilities?_ Hiei frowned. "That girl was just a human."

"Yes, she was. However, her family was cursed."

"You know this how?"

"Gia and I encountered the ghost of Hikari's sister, Chika. She's told us as much as she possibly could."

"Which is nothing, I bet."

"Not necessarily. Chika mentioned that she and Hikari have been born to see the entities that are in the human world."

"Hn. Entities." Hiei frowned, his irritation taking root within him, flaring more and more. It would explain a few certain things—like why he was unable to probe Hikari's thoughts when she was alive. However, what was the wall in her mind when she had that deadened look? "It sounds ridiculous."

"Ridiculous, then…" Kurama shook his head at Hiei's reaction. "I assume you weren't surprised."

"Not in the slightest." Hiei crossed his arms. "Are you assuming the girl is a lot stronger than we were aware?"

"Not stronger. Perhaps a tad more spiritually aware, yet was unable to control it," murmured Kurama, closing his eyes. "However, Yusuke plans to seek out Hikari's parents. Unfortunately, they aren't in the best condition to receive guests."

"What, they're dead?"

"No. They are insane."

Hiei snorted derisively. "And he thinks he can managed to speak to them? The fool," he muttered. Kurama shook his head in amusement. "You and I both know that Yusuke tends to do things his own way, even when it is unconventional."

That fact was true, as Hiei knew very well. Yusuke had an unconventional streak of getting information as well as winning his fights. "Are you going with him to find the girl's parents?" asked Hiei.

"In order to get information about this curse Hikari's family was placed under, it may as well be our only chance. Chika Tsukiyomi is not entirely keen to help us, as Botan is trying to coax her to go to the Reikai," Kurama answered. "You are free to join us, Hiei. As you were the closest one to Hikari, I am sure you would want answers."

"I don't care," retorted Hiei bluntly, glaring at the fox. "Find your answers. It will not change the fact that she is dead." Even as the words escaped him, Hiei found a foul taste coating his tongue. However, he wasn't going to admit that aloud. Riled with impatience, Hiei proceeded to move to Kurama's window.

"Leaving already, Hiei?" The fox was looking at Hiei, his eyes contemplative, yet betraying no other emotion.

"I have no other reason to be here." Another foul taste in his mouth—it seemed to be an indication of a lie. Shaking his head, Hiei put his foot on the sill and hauled himself out into the night.


	7. Shatter

_This one seems a bit shorter, I know. But everything is going to get even more eerie~_

* * *

The chains from the swing creaked as Gia pushed to and fro, her bangs in her eyes. The sudden burst of raw anger she directed at Kurama was finally beginning to wane, as a sharp clarity began to wash over her.

It wasn't Kurama's fault that Hikari confided in him within the last moments of her life. If anything, he was entirely blameless in the situation. Hikari chose not to confide in her or Zeri, as she had normally done; she hadn't even confided in anyone about her older sister or even the fact that her entire bloodline was cursed. Even though Hikari didn't tell the redheaded demon fox about her family in the last months of her life, she chose to confide in someone she probably felt wouldn't judge her or try to pry information out of her. That was how Gia saw it, at least.

Her chest tightened at the thought of Hikari, tears loading into her eyes as though on cue. Hikari was the youngest of all of them, the baby. They all should have been able to protect her or should have been in tune to her emotions much better than they were. Then maybe, just maybe, Hikari would be alive and they would know what this entity was.

As soon as the thought passed her mind, Gia felt her breath catching at the thought. It wasn't just the demons that killed her, it was whatever the evil was that haunted Hikari for six years. It bided its time, patiently, until Hikari was isolated enough and struck. Shuddering, Gia closed her eyes. Chika had said the Tsukiyomi family was cursed for generations. What didn't add up were the ages of the, as far as she knew, last two of the Tsukiyomi. Chika died when Hikari was ten years old, and no more than six years have passed since the younger Tsukiyomi sister met the same fate: being murdered by demons. However, Chika had stated that the girls were always able to see shadows, entities, among the humans in the Ningenkai—which had to have meant that Hikari must have known what was coming for her.

Of course, this was all speculation. The only one who could answer was Chika, about her own murder and experience with the strange gift the Tsukiyomi family had. Either that, or track down the only two living Tsukiyomi members left: Hikari's parents, whom were in no condition to speak to anyone. The two had lost their minds, Chika said, after living beyond expected when the curse was supposed to claim them. _So why was this…thing…in such a hurry to claim two sisters?_

Breathing heavily, Gia stood up, pushing her hair away from her face. She had a very bad feeling and usually they were on target. It would be better for her to return back to Yusuke's apartment, as she was already quite out of the way as it was and Yusuke, and Kuwabara were still convinced she and Zeri were in danger. She wasn't going to even tread that type of danger. Inhaling and exhaling to control herself, Gia began her trek back to Yusuke and Keiko's place.

A chill raced up her spine as she heard the bushes rustle, her senses on high alert for danger. Her breaths began to leave her in shallow bursts, choking her, throat tightening. Her eyes darted back and forth. Her instincts screamed for her to run, but Gia wasn't sure if this was a threat or a friend. Rationality booted her in the face—if it were any of her friends, they'd make themselves known by now. "Who's there?" she snarled, trying her best to sound intimidating, yet her heart thundered wildly in her chest.

Only crickets chirping in the night answered her and Gia felt her body relax before the bushes rustled again and her muscles snapped to attention. This time, Gia sensed an ominous aura leaking into the air, permeating, sinking into her pores. It was an aura dripping with evil, with cunning, with violent bloodlust. It made her blood run cold, ice flooding into her lungs, her throat tightening to the point of pain. _What's happening?_

 _ **"All alone, little girl. Tut, tut…most unwise…"**_ The voice that drifted into Gia's mind was the same voice that spoke before they all heard Hikari screaming in agony. Tears pricked at Gia's eyes. This was the entity that haunted Hikari's family, taking the lives of the Tsukiyomi sisters and the sanity of their parents. Her breath hitching, Gia whispered, "What do you want?"

 _ **"What do I want? I want what is rightfully mine. I've only obtained one piece to reach that goal."**_

 _One piece? Hikari?_ No sooner had Gia thought of her friend, a chillingly, mirthless laughter rang through her mind, turning her blood into ice shards. _**"That's right; you are a smart human. The Tsukiyomi girl was indeed a very vital piece."**_

"Why was _she_ a vital piece?" Gia asked, dimly aware that she could seem insane for speaking to a voice in her mind aloud—but at the moment, she didn't care. This entity found her, was saying how Hikari was an important piece. It only revived the embers of Gia's anger at how neither she, Zeri, nor any of the former spirit detectives knew anything. Hikari had utterly kept them in the dark, not even letting them peek into her pain. All she did was smile that damningly calm smile around them.

 _ **"Yes…you are quite angry, aren't you?"**_ The tone was almost _pleased_. _The sick son of a…_

Gia gasped as the ice in her veins travelled to her throat, gripping it in a vice. Sweat beaded onto her temple, dripping down her face, as the voice became more menacing and the ice began to spread into her heart.

 _ **"Let that darkness feed inside of your heart. It merely makes it more delicious for when we finally devour you humans."**_

A numbing sensation seeped through Gia, her breath slowing down as her vision clouded. The entity was laughing in her ears as through the haze, Gia could see flashes of a memory…

 _It was like being an animal in a cage. Her wrists were strapped down by something heavy, cold, her bare body feeling the same cold that gripped her. Her eyes were fixed on steel-plated ceiling. Her breaths escaped her lips in slow, deliberate breaths. She knew what she was, but her purpose was unknown. That much she could deduce._

 _She struggled, feeling her muscles straining against her bonds. She vaguely heard the sound of snapping bones and ripping muscles before the faint ping of metal breaking apart. She pushed herself upright and groped about, finding a cloth and wrapping it tightly about her body, knotting the cloth above the swell of her breasts. She rushed to the door, wrenching the locked door open. Mildly surprised at her strength, she moved like liquid darkness through the unguarded halls. The sound of maniacal laughter bounced off the walls, accompanied by the cacophony of tinkering noises. Attention wasn't paid to her as she tiptoed to her destination—the exit._

Gia's mind flashed to another memory, a happier memory…

 _She had been in the outside world for thirty days, zero hours, zero minutes, and eight seconds. She clung tightly to her meager cloth that hid her bare body, but the chills of the night air would affect her eventually. She stumbled into an empty park, sinking to her knees the moment she took refuge beneath a formidable tree, its leaves blocking the sky. She closed her eyes, breathing inaudibly. She was outside of that stifling prison, a free animal. She only hoped it lasted forever._

 _"This is a weird place to sleep." A soft voice whispered to her and her eyes snapped open._

 _Kneeling beside her was a young girl, with long, dark hair, pale skin, and the most unusual ember eyes. She took in the strange girl's appearance, wondering why her scans hadn't indicated the heat signature beside her. The girl tilted her head, her soft pink lips turned downwards as her brows furrowed delicately over her eyes. She was like a tiny doll, like the ones she had observed in the books occasionally shown to her in the cage. The dolls that had those wide eyes, pink lips, pink cheeks, and skin like glass. The ones that look so breakable that even the slightest touch would cause her to turn into dust._

 _The doll moved and sat at her side, looking up at the sky through the breaks of leaves. "Why are you by yourself?" she asked softly, her voice as soft as a whisper, drifting in the air like a ghost. She hadn't responded, wasn't sure how to even do so. She had read the few books she'd seen, but only understood a few words. The words spoken to her held no real meaning, no inflection. When she looked at the girl with the strange eyes, she made gestures, hoping that got her point across of her lack of words._

 _The fire-eyed girl watched her gestures intently before her lips turned upward faintly. A smile, her mind supplied. "I see," she murmured. "You haven't learned speech, have you?"_

 _She shook her head and the girl stood up and held out a small hand. "I'll help you."_

 _She detected no lie so she took that small hand and was pulled to her feet and, unknowingly, into her new life._

Hikari had found her in that park and, with that gentle smile and outstretched hand, pulled her into a normal life. Gia knew that her origins were a secret she would carry to her grave and yet Hikari had glimpsed her the moment she was free. The tears that were pricking at her eyes broke free, trailing down her face as a weakness overcame her, her heart's pounding becoming slower and slower…

The ice left her body as quickly as her heavy body arched back toward the ground. Her eyes felt just as heavy as her body, as though every bit of her was filled with lead. Wisps of her hair graced her vision before her eyes closed…

She was aware of strong arms catching her, easing her to the ground. There was a buzzing in her ears, intense, as though someone was yelling and the haze in her mind cleared enough that she was aware of a voice shouting, "Gia!"

She forced her heavy eyes to open and could see faces swimming into her blurry view, but as soon as the haze cleared more, she was aware of who was yelling her name. Yusuke was looking down at her, his brown eyes frantic, with Kuwabara at his side. Kuwabara was looking around and Gia felt he was sensing the effects that hideous entity left in its wake.

Gia forced herself to be upright and she felt Yusuke's arm move to her shoulders in support. "What the hell happened, Gia?" he asked, frowning at her. "We came to find you and you almost crack your head on the ground!"

"I just…I…" Gia frowned and pressed her hand to her head before what Yusuke told her sank in. "Why did you come find me? You know I'm tougher than you think."

Kuwabara was the one who answered. "We just…had a feeling that you needed help," he said. "So we looked everywhere for you."

Gia sensed that they weren't being utterly honest with her—and Kuwabara had this code of honor and Yusuke was a brashly honest person to start with. When she narrowed her eyes and saw them flinch, her suspicions were confirmed but Yusuke immediately countered with a wry grin. "Look, let's get you home. I left Keiko and Botan with Zeri and I know Zeri needs your sunny disposition!"

At the mention of Zeri, Gia shot to her feet, suspicion forgotten for the time being. "Then _what_ am I still doing here with you idiots? Let's go!" she exclaimed. When Yusuke got to his feet, Gia took off in the direction of the apartment, the two males behind her. She was out of appropriate earshot and Kuwabara asked under his breath, "Shouldn't we tell her? I mean, how else would we find her?"

Yusuke shot the orange-haired male a look and shook his head. It wouldn't have sat well with Gia if they told her right now, especially when Zeri needed Gia. Both girls knew Hikari for the longest time and Yusuke could remember when they first met her.

 _The concentration of demonic aura was centered in one corner of the city, into the woods. Yusuke and Kuwabara had sensed it during school and as soon as school let out, they had rushed to find the source. The source was getting stronger as they got closer to the woods when distorted chortles reached them._

 _Three large demons surrounded a small girl who held a black book to her chest. There was a thin laceration on the curve of her cheek. Her expression was stoic, but there was defiance in her eyes. The middle demon grabbed her roughly by the front of her shirt, its other hand closing around her neck. Even with the demons chuckling, lusting for her blood, she still remained defiant, that black notebook clutched so tightly to her chest._

 _The two students of Sarayashiki Junior High sensed familiar demonic energies coming toward them before Yusuke shouted, "Hey! Ugly, Uglier, and Ugliest!"_

 _The three turned to face them, the girl still in the clutches of the middle demon, her hair hanging in her eyes. Yusuke and Kuwabara charged, throwing punches at the demons. They swiped their clawed hands at the detectives in retaliation. They avoided the swipes, but were unsure of how to proceed without harming the girl who hung so loosely like a ragdoll._

 _Relief came when a familiar sight of a whip wrapped around the arm of the demon that had her, bound tight to keep it from moving. Kuwabara activated his Reiki sword, rushing to slice one of the demons to pieces. The other was cleaved in two and Yusuke sensed Hiei's energy. So the detective took matters into his own hands with the final demon and fired his Reigun at the final demon. When its grip went slack, the girl fell to the ground as the demon's body crashed to the ground in a crumpled heap._

 _The four friends had converged around the girl, who pushed herself upright. She had crawled to what they realized was a slightly ripped bag, muttering absentmindedly to herself. She set the notebook on the ground beside her as she checked the contents of her bag._

" _Are you okay?" asked Yusuke, raising an eyebrow at how utterly calm she was. When she didn't answer, he saw from the corner of his eye that Kurama had picked up the girl's notebook and there was a name written upon it—Tsukiyomi._

" _Miss," Kurama spoke to her carefully, trying not to startle her, and she turned to look at the redhead. When her eyes darted to the notebook in his hand, she quickly snatched it from his hand and held it to her chest as her eyes flickered from him, to Yusuke, to Kuwabara, and to Hiei._

 _It felt like it lasted for hours until she finally said, "Thank you."_

 _She got to her feet, holding the strap of her bag, her hair cascading past her waist. When she pushed it from her face, she tilted her head. "Thank you," she repeated._

" _No problem." Yusuke grinned, hoping the girl would at least crack a damn smile._

" _Were those things creatures of humanity?" she asked._

" _What do you mean by that?" asked Kuwabara, raising an eyebrow._

 _As if she was aware of what she had just said, the girl's eyes widened slightly. "Nothing. Nothing. Thank you," she said before palming her forehead. "Oh, goodness, I said that already, didn't I?"_

" _Hn." Hiei was exuding an aura of irritation at saving an obviously disturbed human girl and he ignored the pointed look that Kurama sent him._

 _The girl, however, had sharp senses and her eyes caught the fire apparition's. Something flickered in her eyes for a moment—here and then gone-before Kurama spoke to her. "You've had quite an ordeal, miss. It would do you some good to rest."_

 _She regarded Kurama with a look of confusion before nodding. "Yeah…today was weird. But, I do want some answers—like what were those things that attacked me."_

" _We'll tell you on the way," Yusuke said before snapping his fingers. "Oh, by the way, I'm Yusuke. That idiot-" He jerked his head toward Kuwabara "—is Kuwabara."_

" _Hey-" Kuwabara began to interject angrily, but Yusuke continued as if he hadn't spoke and gestured toward the two demons of the group. "That's Kurama and Hiei."_

 _She nodded and bowed. "My name is Hikari."_

Even then, Hikari had such a strange aura about her. Yusuke couldn't even believe it took this long for him to notice it. Hikari had always been strange, saying weird things at times, even when smiling with Gia and Zeri. They had all just chalked it up to it just being a quirk, so it never raised any flags. Now, with everything that was going on, they should have noticed the major red flag: her behavior.

* * *

 _She was surprised a breath could even leave her lips even though she was dead._

 _Even now, every breath was wracked with pain, sliding past the stitches in an excruciating second._

 _The Shadow—that's what she had taken to calling the monster that snared her as soon as she was ripped to shreds—had chained her to it, tethered her to its home: some dark, abyssal realm where it reeked of blood and agony, where the air was shredded by screams._

 _Alive, she thought Hell included fire and brimstone; she thought wrong._

 _The Shadow sat on its throne while she remained chained on its right-hand side, her unruly power of the Sense at his disposal now that she could no longer fight the Shadow._

 _She had long lost hope that escaping while in the Ningenkai would signify to her friends of her plight. She couldn't even tell them the Shadow's plan._

 _The long, curved claw traced the contour of her ripped cheek as her eyes rose to gaze at the altar set off to the side of the room. Upon it was a body that the lessor, formless entities were focusing on healing the wounds scattered among it._

" _Are you enthused, my pet?" purred the Shadow, its distorted voice mocking. She didn't respond; she never could anyway._

" _Soon, your powers will be unleashed to their potential."_

 _She wished she could close her eyes, to block this nightmare. She wished she couldn't see the entities plaguing humanity._

 _She was a Tsukiyomi with the strongest of the powers that plagued her family. Her mind had already begun to deteriorate._

 _Soon, everything else will._


	8. Black

_Sorry for the delay, you tots. I actually have been busy with two jobs out here in the world, so I'll try to dish out updates whenever I can. The chapter is shorter than I'd like, but I aim to make the next chappie longer._

* * *

" _So demons are real."_

 _Yusuke had found the girl they saved wandering around the city, but she wasn't alone. Two other girls were with her and when he approached, she introduced her friends as Gia and Zeri once she recognized one of her saviors. They all agreed to go to one of the small cafes nearby to talk about demons and Hikari being able to see them and once Yusuke got to talking, Hikari's initial reaction was a stone face and those four words._

 _Yusuke nodded, somewhat unnerved at the fact that the girl they rescued was so matter-of-fact in her reaction. There was no "You're pulling my leg" or "You're an utter nutcase, please stay far away from me". The friend sitting on Hikari's lefthand side—Gia—pushed her bangs from her eyes before a wry smile curled her lip. "You look like Kari just scared the crap out of you—Urameshi, was it?" she said dryly. "Trust me, there's lots of weird crap in the world. Demons are a new one on Zeri and I, though."_

 _Hikari had drummed her fingers against the table, silent, as her ember eyes lighted with something Yusuke couldn't place his finger on. It wasn't curiosity; it wasn't dread._

 _What in the hell was that look?_

"Urameshi, you're looking lost in thought and that's saying something." Gia's voice broke through Yusuke's reminiscence of when he first spoke to Gia and Zeri when he found the three girls walking through town. Yusuke plastered an automatic grin to his face. "Not looking lost. Just glad we found you before something bad could happen," he said. Even when the words escaped him, a chill raced down in spine.

Hikari was killed because they couldn't find her. She had isolated herself from them and even though they hadn't known about the curse inflicted unto her family, they felt that crushing guilt. Their friend needed help and they weren't there when they should have been. When Gia's eyes dimmed, Yusuke knew that she knew what he meant. If what stole Hikari's soul from her peace and wanted to make a play for the rest of them, being alone was making them a perfect target.

Gia couldn't bear to mention to Yusuke that she heard that mirthless voice that in her head and felt the cold grasp of death reaching for her heart. She had almost lost and if it wasn't for the memory of meeting Hikari, she would have. Then Yusuke and Kuwabara would have been too late to save her. She looked away from Yusuke's stare and walked ahead. She and Zeri were alive and if the entity that took Hikari's soul took them, then their friends would next. It was something that shook Gia inside.

"You two should hurry back. Zeri could be awake by now," Kuwabara commented, looking toward Yusuke and Gia. "I gotta head home."

"See ya then," replied Yusuke with a broad grin and Kuwabara disappeared into the night en route home. Turning to Gia, Yusuke asked, "Let's get going. Zeri's waiting."

"Speak for yourself, your woman's waiting," teased Gia with a grin. With a matching grin of his own, Yusuke reached to ruffle Gia's hair. "Yeah, yeah," he replied.

They proceeded to head to Yusuke's apartment and as soon as Yusuke unlocked the door, Gia zoomed past him. Keiko sat next to Zeri, whose complexion had gotten paler, shadows under eyes. Her dark eyes had brightened slightly when Gia was immediately at her side.

"How're you feeling, Zeri?" asked Gia, pushing Zeri's limp hair from her face. Zeri offered a weak smile. "Doing better. After resting, Keiko gave me some tea," she answered before tilting her head. "Where did you go? You weren't here when I woke up."

"Well, Kurama and I went to Kari's place, had a disagreement and I walked away," Gia told her diplomatically as if it were something she does every single day of the week. Yusuke let out an obnoxiously loud huff of breath. "Right, and worrying the hell out of the rest of us."

"Sorry, sorry," grinned Gia, waving a hand dismissively at Yusuke. Keiko shook her head with a laugh. "At least you're okay, Gia. After Hikari, we worry that…" she trailed off, aware that they were heading into the unstable surfaces of Hikari's murder and that it truly hasn't been resolved.

Zeri continued, attempting to keep her voice strong—Yusuke could hear it. "What did you and Kurama find, Gia?" she asked.

"Time to catch you up to speed, Sleeping Beauty." Yusuke folded his arms over his chest. "Kurama came to tell us what you two found," he told Gia before looking at Zeri. "Kari's had a sister who was murdered by demons when she was ten. That sister's been haunting her, but Kari never told us. Also, Kari's parents are alive, but insane. I pitched the idea of finding her folks, but Kurama thinks that's a bad idea."

"Why?" Zeri's voice became harder than anyone had ever heard it. Her brows were drawn, lips set in a tight line. "Why would he be opposed to that?"

"Because they could be dangerous or something," said Yusuke, huffing a breath again. "They won't be lucid."

"And if they are when we go see them?" challenged Zeri, trying to stand up in her indignation but Gia kept her still, concern written on her face. "We can't just give up even with a lead as minute as this!"

"Zeri, think about what you're saying," Keiko murmured, her eyes shining with sympathy. "Even if we manage to find her parents, what more would we be able to do?"

"I don't care!" Zeri's voice broke through the calm, her expression twisted with a determination, managing to break from Gia's aid to stand up. "Kari needs our help! She needs us and we're just sitting here on our ass while she's suffering!"

Silence met Zeri's outburst before Yusuke grinned at her. "That a girl, Zeri. We'll get this done, no sweat!" he told her, giving her a thumbs-up right as a familiar aura appeared outside of the window. Judging by the sudden surprise in Gia and Zeri's face, they felt it right as the window slid open.

"Hiei!" Yusuke blinked as the demon climbed into the apartment. Hiei merely grunted, crossing his arms. "You won't be able to find the girl's parents by whatever method you're planning, Yusuke," he muttered.

"Are you saying you found them?" asked Gia, her voice painted with aggression as she approached the fire demon.

"Hn." Hiei crossed his arms and averted his eyes, not wanting to even grace Gia's impertinence with an answer. Despite how close his friends were to those females, he wasn't feeling the urge to divulge the fact that he had used his Jagan to try and find Hikari's mentally unstable ancestors. He never liked to clarify his activities for his own reasons, yet his mind felt muddled—as though he couldn't even keep his reasons as his own if they centered entirely around helping Yusuke and the others to get Hikari's soul to the Reikai.

"Hiei." Zeri's soft voice broke through his thoughts and Hiei was stunned to find that the usually mild girl mere feet from him, her dark eyes lacking the warmth and serenity that she usually held. Her face was pale and sunken, reminiscent of Hiei's own sleepless nights of being haunted by Hikari. She must have guessed at the truth within his mind, a trait annoyingly inherited from Kurama by the years of interaction, because she spoke softly. "Hikari is haunting you too, isn't she, Hiei? You can hear her screaming in your head and you can't make it stop no matter how much you want to."

His mental anguish was summed up in a mere few words, Hiei ground his teeth. He wanted to stop hearing Hikari calling for him over and over again; he wanted to not see the image of her torn body burned into his retinas; he wanted to know why he was able to see the spectre that haunted Hikari's soul. Even then while recalling his vision, he can recall how Hikari's soul was stoic, yet emotion flickered in her eyes. It was though she longed to tell him something, anything, but the spectre being there had stitched her mouth shut—

Comprehension hit him so blatantly, he would have been happily welcomed to receive a smack to the face for it. "A message," he muttered. Zeri's eyes flickered with something unfathomable. "Message…that's it," she whispered.

"What's going on?" Yusuke asked, looking between the two, his eyes narrowed with confusion. Hiei and Zeri both appeared haggard, as though plagued by inner turmoil that twisted inside of them and was slowly breaking them bit by bit. Yusuke knew Hikari was the reason for Zeri's deteriorating condition, but he couldn't place why Hiei—cool, calm, collected Hiei—would appear just as haggard as Zeri. The comprehension shared between them couldn't have been tied to Hikari.

"Kari. She's been trying to reach us, to tell us something," whispered Zeri as she raised a shaking hand to her temple. Her face paled as her voice rose, hysteria tingeing the tone. "A message, a cry for help. Yusuke, she's been trying to reach us and we're not any closer to finding her!"

"Calm down!" Gia grabbed Zeri's shoulders, her own eyes hard with emotion. "Zeri, don't go getting all excited, you're still too weak-"

"No!" Zeri screeched in her hysteria, squirming free from Gia's grip to glare at Hiei with fierceness the demon had never before seen. "Hiei, you know what I'm saying, don't you? I can tell you're seeing her too. Hikari's trying to reach us for help and we're just sitting here while she's suffering. Doesn't that just make you angry?!"

It honestly made Hiei want to rend flesh of demons in the Makai, but he wasn't going to say that to Zeri when she was obviously losing her mind. However, he wasn't going to admit that he thought he was losing his mind as well.

"Look, we just gotta find Hikari's parents." Yusuke stepped between the two, resting his hand on Zeri's shoulder. "The sooner we can get more information about this Tsukiyomi curse that's messed up her family, the sooner we can kick the ass of whatever is keeping her away from Reikai."

At Yusuke's reasoning, Zeri slowly relaxed, her chest heaving from her panting as her eyes slowly slid close. Gia placed her hand on Zeri's other shoulder gently, to not startle her. "C'mon. You need to rest a little longer before we go on our road trip," she murmured, guiding Zeri to the guest room and disappearing from sight. Yusuke turned his gaze to Hiei, a frown on his face. "Look, Hiei, we're all hurting from Hikari's murder. You're the only one who's so tightlipped about it. We've been through a lot of crap, can't you at least trust me with what's on your mind?" he asked.

Hiei glared at the former detective before exhaling an irritated breath. "It's none of your concern, detective. I just happen to know exactly what Zeri was muttering about in her fit of insanity."

"Look, Hiei, Gia and Zeri took Hikari's death the hardest. They want this resolved just as much as we do and it doesn't help if we all aren't on the up and up with each other."

"Like the girl was with us before she was tragically murdered?"

The jab, though fact, didn't diminish the hurt that transcended it. The group was always tightknit and never kept things from one another, but Hikari had kept secrets of her own. It was though they were in the middle of a game and she changed all the rules before leaving them to figure out what to do next. Silence hung between the males, heavier than a sigh. It ruffled Yusuke's feathers that his friend couldn't even talk about what bothered him. What annoyed Hiei most was that at the very moment Yusuke began to speak to him from the girls' earshot was that he could sense Hikari even now. The girl's presence was annoyingly etched into his very skin and he would give anything to remove it.

"Dude, you okay?" asked Yusuke suddenly, his brows drawn over his eyes. "You look like you had to swallow a lemon. Or worse, walk an old lady across the street."

Shaking his head, Hiei proceeded to step back to the window before a crippling pain overcame him, his knees crashing to the floor. Breath was knocked out of him, his lungs tightening painfully as though the room suddenly lacked air. He was aware of Yusuke at his side, his ears buzzing with a sharp, feminine screech that seared his mind. When he raised his eyes to the window, he could see Hikari in front of him—only something was different. _Wrong._

She wasn't the ripped, broken spectre that had haunted them. Her skin was as pale and soft as when she was alive. Her dark hair was loose down to her waist. Yet her eyes—those eyes weren't amber.

The entirety of her eyes were completely black.


	9. Break

Yusuke couldn't erase the shock that chilled his system at the sound of Zeri's inhuman shrieking and Hiei collapsing to his knees in pain. The brown-eyed male knelt beside the black-haired demon, taking in his pale face and glazed eyes. Hiei was fixated on the space in front of him, mere inches from the window, yet Yusuke had no understanding of what was going through his friend's head. The glazed look in Hiei's eyes darkened into something indistinguishable. Yusuke gritted his teeth and he grasped Hiei's shoulder and shook him roughly. "Hiei. Hiei, snap out of it, man! What the hell's up with you?"

There was a flicker of reaction in Hiei's eyes, but Yusuke couldn't discern if Hiei truly heard him. There were a few beats of silence before Hiei shook his head furiously, blinking before resting a hand against his temple. The piercing screeches dropped to mere whimpers now and Yusuke could hear Gia's voice attempting to soothe Zeri before he returned his attention to Hiei, who was pushing himself to his feet. "Whoa, man, you just collapsed! The hell do you think you're doing?"

"I'm leaving." Hiei's answer was clipped and irritable as he advanced toward the window. Granted the male was usually irritated by something (like Kuwabara), but this irritation was steeped with something dark and Yusuke couldn't help but wonder. "Why were you staring so hard near the window?" he asked. Hiei stopped short, his foot on the sill, and his hand hovering inches from the window to haul out. Hiei couldn't even begin to explain what he saw. Like Zeri, in her current state of lunacy, he saw Hikari—no, that was incorrect. The image of the girl that floated in front of his eyes while he was crippled with pain was not the soul they were chasing. It was a vision, he was almost sure. It was similar to the one he had in Mukuro's compound before he had returned to the Ningenkai to try and remove the noose that ringed his neck, yet it was different. It was wrong. The girl was in healed body, dressed in black. Her eyes were just as black as the cloth that concealed her body, void of the emotion she always held. The aura she exuded in the vision was unlike any villain he had faced alongside Yusuke: it was chilling, the scent of power and death overpowering the air. The moment he regained his senses, the vision disappeared like smoke and a sickening knot formed in his stomach.

"Hiei, the minute we find Kari's parents and know more of what's going on, this can end," said Yusuke in a solemn voice. It was a rare mood for the ex-detective that Hiei could sense that Yusuke thoroughly believed finding Hikari's parents would somehow fit the jagged pieces into the ever-growing myriad of what they didn't know. Clenching his teeth, Hiei shook his head brusquely. "You do not know that, Yusuke. This may not end," he muttered coldly. He was unsure of how he could possibly know; however, he had an ominous feeling in his bones. That feeling had worsened when that fleeting vision passed through his eyes. With another shake of his head, Hiei jumped out of the window without another word.

Yusuke stabbed his fingers through his dark hair, eyes narrowed in irritation. Hiei had gone off without even leaving information on where to find Hikari's insane parents and it was the one, vital piece of information they needed in order to get their girl to the Reikai without casualties. As the thought passed through his mind, Yusuke remembered when he, Kuwabara, Hiei, and Kurama had gone into Hikari's apartment and found that box with scraps of paper with her odd little notes. What could probably piece more together would be Hikari's notebook, her most treasured possession. If Hikari etched her very being into that notebook, it would unveil every secret she ever kept inside—and the only person who had seen her soul lay bare was Hiei.

"Yusuke?" Gia's voice broke through his thoughts and Yusuke turned around. Gia's expression was one of worry. "Did Hiei bail on us?" she asked.

"For now," answered Yusuke with a heavy sigh. "Hiei left without telling us where to find Hikari's parents, but I'm sure he'll pull through."

"Hope so," muttered Gia, wrapping her arms around herself loosely. "I just…Zeri seems to be out of it. It's getting worse each time, like she's wounded in a way that's deeper than we even realize."

Yusuke felt a lump rising in his throat, but he wasn't sure whether it was grief or anger. Everything they had the comfort of knowing was ripped apart at the seams and it appeared they were becoming even more powerless to stop it.

* * *

There was a chill in the air and it bothered Kuwabara for many reasons as he walked through the streets. Much as he was with Yusuke, the girls, Hiei and Kurama, they were no closer to finding anything out about Hikari and how some dark spirit chained her soul. He could sense spirits and sensed when Hikari's soul happened to be nearby. It bothered him and made him wonder why her window of opportunity to speak with them was short. So short, in fact, that she would disappear the moment the fear lit her deadened eyes. It was bad enough to know how her body looked after being savagely murdered by demons. It was worse to know that her soul was tainted and whatever did it had no intention of letting go.

He had gone home and Yukina was the first to pick up on his mood. His sister, of course, had a stronger sixth sense than him and he knew she had to have caught wind of the situation. Yukina was the first to ask, her crimson eyes glowing with concern, and, with a heavy sigh, Kuwabara sat Yukina and Shizuru down to explain the situation.

Yukina had clapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes widening with horror at what little he knew. Shizuru took a drag of her cigarette, her eyes downcast, before she spoke, her voice heavy with something unfathomable. "If she's trying to reach out to you guys, the least you can do is listen."

Kuwabara understood that much, but that wasn't what bothered him. The only person Hikari's spirit seemed to try to reach for was Hiei, and their relationship, if anyone could call it that, was tumultuous at best. Kuwabara may have been single-minded in his training back then, to be strong and to harness his aura to fight alongside Yusuke, but even he had noticed how strange the interaction between Hiei and Hikari had been. Hikari had already been an odd girl, and Kuwabara made it no secret to his friends that he thought so. Hikari had been too out of sorts after she was saved from the demons and whenever they had seen her, she had that damned black book that she guarded as though her life depended on it. Though now that he thought it, perhaps that notebook was the very thing that kept her sane, that kept her from flying to the deep end. Her very history, whatever it was, had to have been in that notebook.

There had been another thing that Hikari had done. She was very curious about demons, even though they all had found out about her older sister being murdered by demons. Had Hikari witnessed it, but not realize they were demons? Or was she truly in the dark until now?

A chill swept up to Kuwabara's spine as he looked over his shoulder. The presence was unfamiliar and before he could put his finger to what it could possibly be, a voice whispered in his mind: _"That way. Go that way."_

A thrum encompassed him and Kuwabara felt the strange, urgent sensation of needing to find something. The voice drilled it into him, propelling him into the direction of a nearby park. The feeling was growing stronger as he walked through the deserted area, close to the cluster of bushes near the playground.

The thrumming banged his bones when he was near a small bush, the feeling of whatever he was supposed to find blaring his senses. He knelt down, digging his hands into the dirt. He had no idea what he was digging for, but just knew that whatever it was, it was buried right here. Dirt lined the tips of his fingers, staining his hands, as he dug deeper and deeper. Soon, his felt something hard come into contact with his fingers before he spread the dirt aside, his fingers hooking beneath the item before he pulled it out.

It was a thin, black book, the once pristine cover and edge of pages smeared with dirt. Frowning, Kuwabara turned the notebook over, the thrumming lessening from its fever pitch, but still present. He placed his hand over the cover and proceeding to sweep the dirt off of it, feeling grooves of something engraved upon it. When he cleared enough of the dirt from the notebook, he looked at the cover.

His mind went blank as his eyes widened, the chill growing worse inside of him, chilling the blood in his veins.

On the cover of the notebook was one word, and one word only.

 _Tsukiyomi._

* * *

"All right, Kuwabara, tell us what it is you're freaking out about, but do it a bit slower, okay?" Yusuke had to haul Gia and Zeri out of bed the moment the sun had rose after he received a call from Kuwabara, saying that he needed to get everyone to meet at the park not far from Kuwabara's home. Kurama had arrived a few minutes after Yusuke, Gia, and Zeri and Yusuke had to have imagined the sharp glare Gia threw to the demon fox's direction. That was a resolution for another time.

Kuwabara's face was serious before he revealed the item that he had behind his back. The black notebook with the name Tsukiyomi etched on the cover sent a wave of tension throughout the group. Zeri's eyes widened as she breathed, "Where did you find it?"

"Here," Kuwabara muttered. "I had a feeling and I found this notebook buried in the dirt." The hand holding the book shook, a sign of the male being unnerved which had been extremely rare as of late. "I hadn't opened it and I don't want to. I just have a bad feeling."

"Kuwabara," Kurama spoke carefully, reaching to take the book from the orange-haired male. "Calm yourself. We will all go through this."

Nodding, Kuwabara relinquished the book to the fox's possession, yet Kurama was certain that he was not the only one who felt a chill growing within him at the notion that this was a clue that Hikari had hidden away. The physical manifestation of her soul was in their grasps now and just the jagged pieces they found out only wrought more questions.

Gia supported Zeri carefully, her eyes slightly narrowed and lips pressed together in a thin line. Naturally, she wanted information that etched the pages of that notebook, but she had to be mindful of Zeri, whose round, darkening eyes seemed have sunk into their sockets. Zeri seemed keen to know the innermost thoughts of Hikari; however, whatever delusions she seemed to be suffering from in regards to her friend's agony was not healthy for her. "Open it," she breathed softly and Kurama was acutely aware of all eyes on him and the book in his hand. Steeling himself, Kurama lifted the book slightly, flipping the cover open.

On the inner cover were a few taped photos. The most recent ones involving them as a whole were on the bottom. The topmost picture was a photograph of a much younger Hikari, with her sister Chika, and two adults that Kurama deduced were her parents. The photograph, however, was in sepia compared to the color photos Hikari taped within her book. The first page of the notebook was a rough sketch of the city set aflame, and that strange spectre she had drawn on a smaller sheet of paper looming over it. Underneath, Hikari had written only one sentence, one that Kurama read aloud with a dry throat. "The darkness took the name of the demon Azazel."

A tense silence followed the statement before Yusuke asked, "Azazel?"

"Hikari is correct that Azazel is the name of a demon. However, the image of the spectre-" Kurama turned the notebook to them to show the sketch that was on the first page, "—is the same one we found on a scrap of paper when we went to Hikari's apartment. She wrote that this entity has taken the name."

"That's the thing that took her," Zeri whispered, her eyes becoming impossibly rounder as she studied the sketch intently. "That's it."

"How do you know, Zeri?" asked Kuwabara, looking to the brunette curiously. Zeri's already dark eyes seemed to sink even further inside, the color utterly drained from her cheeks, as her eyes flickered from face to face. "The nightmares I'd have of Hikari screaming in agony, that thing… _Azazel_ …it would be there, with its hand squeezing Hikari's neck and dragging her away," she murmured, leaning against Gia for support as her eyelids half-mast. "Hikari's scream would be in my head, echoing like a bell, but her lips were sewn shut and her entire expression was like stone. _She was like stone_."

"Hell," muttered Yusuke under his breath, his brown eyes cast to the ground, teeth furrowed into his lower lip. Gia raised her eyes to meet Kurama's. "Turn the page," she urged softly. With a curt nod, Kurama turned the book to him to flip the page. Hikari's elegant handwriting took up the page.

" _Chika didn't know much about the curse that haunts our family. Mama had told me about how the curse wasn't what it seemed to be: it wasn't merely a pact between an entity and an ancestor of our family. Mama had said that our ancestor had given herself to the entity and it has since had a taste for the power that ran in our blood. In my blood._

 _I've seen Azazel. He gave me his name. At first, I had no idea why he revealed himself to me and I had thought I was delusional at first. Azazel never said anything, though. All he did was watch._

 _All he did was haunt."_

"She…sensed it?" Kuwabara gawked, his jaw dropping. "Hikari didn't have an aura. How could she have sensed it?"

"She didn't _sense_ it," Yusuke shot at the orange-haired male. "Kari's _seen_ it. It's been hovering over her and we haven't even had an _inkling-_ "

"That is incorrect," Kurama interjected, his voice cool. He narrowed his eyes at the words etched on the thin page, the sliver of knowledge burning within him that signified that the Hikari they always thought they knew wasn't as aloof as she seemed. She had been alert and not in the traditional sense—she was not alert to her fellow humans, but rather an entity named Azazel. "Hikari's had an inkling of an aura," he continued, aware that his companions were waiting for him to resume his train of thought, "a burst of aura that would radiate from her at strange moment. However, I believe this page alone just answered the question about that aura and it wasn't Hikari's."

"You've felt it too?" whispered Gia, a faraway glint in her eyes, her expression slackening slightly. "That strange feeling around her, like…like ease, but not really?"

Kurama wasn't certain if he should dignify the question with an answer, especially when he couldn't subtly evade it without giving some sense of himself away—and Gia was a bit sharper, compared to Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Zeri. If Hikari had been alive, she would be the sharpest of the group, sensing an aspect of anyone without any exchanges of words.

"I don't know what you guys feel, but sometimes I used to get tetchy around Hikari," said Yusuke, crossing his arms. "Like standing on eggshells and you know me, I tend to break them."

"Did you break the eggshells around Hikari?" asked Zeri.

"Dunno," Yusuke answered.

Kurama turned the page again, the expanse of two pages were filled with sketches. Mostly of small things, insignificant things like a flower or a bird. He turned the notebook out to the group, observing their reactions as they studied the pages.

"Kari really liked to draw, huh?" Zeri asked, her eyes roaming over the two pages. "Just strange, little things."

"She always just wrote or something," Yusuke pointed out, glancing at Zeri. "We chalked it into a quirk."

"She just put everything into her notebook." Gia shook her head, as if signifying that she didn't want to see nor hear anymore of Hikari's entries. "I can bet we'll find more things, like details of her family or this family curse, or, hell, even her little crush on Hiei."

There was a pregnant pause before Zeri bit out, "That wasn't something for you to share, Gia."

"Stop it, Zeri. It was as obvious as Yusuke's nose in front of his face."

"Hey!" Yusuke cut in, offended.

"Shut up." Gia rolled her eyes. "The point is Hikari wasn't hiding the fact that she was into Hiei. She always trailed after him, always had that weird look in her eyes whenever she sees him."

"She was whipped," Kuwabara commented.

"It was more than just a crush. Hikari was in love with Hiei. She just never hid it." Now that Gia had put it to the open, Kurama could guarantee that some of the passages of Hikari's notebook would contain some pieces of her feelings for the fire demon. However, Hikari never hid her behavior; she never even behaved like a febrile butterfly like most girls would. She gave no inclination, but it had been obvious—

No, that was false. Hikari did give an inclination. After she had bared her soul to Hiei, she had returned the group with her spirit broken, her eyes glistening with tears, but she never conveyed much of the interaction. She only "bared her soul".

"Find something about her parents, Kurama." Yusuke broke the silence, his tone firm. There was no quiver of emotion, just a fierce resolution. Kurama did so, turning the page carefully so that he didn't miss anything. In the middle of the notebook, the single thing on the page was a family tree—or what could be considered a family tree. Hikari had written her and Chika's name at the bottom and penned two names above theirs were the names Tsuyu and Hatori—the names of her parents. The tree was incomplete, it seemed, but she was in no rush to complete it.

"Hatori and Tsuyu Tsukiyomi. We have their names," Kurama announced before shutting the notebook close. "Now, we just have to find them."

"The only person who knows is Hiei," Gia said. "He said he knew where they were."

"So now we have to wait until he decides to tell us? Just great," Kuwabara grumbled, crossing his arms in irritation. While he and Hiei never got along, they were still comrades; it just so happened that Hiei's mannerisms and strange code dictated that he moved of his own interests.

"He'll come back to us," whispered Zeri, turning her eyes upward to the sky. "Kari's calling for him, I know it. Much as he wants to, he can't ignore it."

* * *

"Are you one too?"

Tsuyu Tsukiyomi asked this of the shadow that mixed with the sunlight of her room. The shadow said nothing, merely stared. She sensed the shadow's presence was swathed in another presence so familiar it brought tears to her eyes. "Did you know I had a daughter? I had two beautiful daughters, but the youngest…oh, she was unusual. Always focused on something, but she was such a good girl…"

The shadow seemed to flinch before it began to move closer, its eyes fixated on the blabbering woman who was so suddenly absorbed back into her own world, unaware of the infiltration of her mind.

 _She was always so quiet, even when her older sister tried to get her to play like most children._

 _Yet Hikari wasn't most children._

 _She always stared into some space and her eyes…_ _ **He realized her eyes were the same as when he knew her**_ _…_

 _She raised a tiny, delicate hand, her fingers outstretched to the empty space…_

 _ **And the memory twisted into itself, into something darker, sinister…**_

 _The clawed hand that stabbed into the flesh of her neck when she had grown, grasped the child's hand in a deceptively gentle manner. The spectre that haunted her in the present emerged in her past,_ _ **hidden in the memory of her mother**_ _, its being hidden beneath its tattered cloak. The child's eyes—_ _ **Those fiery eyes**_ _—remained on the spectre, but a strange smile curved her lips as she whispered, "Azazel."_

" _Azazel" said nothing, only gripped the girl's hand with one of its own, before the other thrusts into her chest. The child didn't scream. Black liquid ooze from where "Azazel" stabbed her, black dripped from her eyes. Then, the spectre turned to_ _ **him, turning the child to look at him. The girl's head tilted to the left—so sickeningly far to the left that her neck cracked. A high, keening scream shattered the memory into pieces and threw him out of the memory…**_

Tsuyu writhed in her chair, her throat tearing from her inhuman shrieking, as the shadow disappeared into the sunlight. "Azazel is coming!" she shrilled, digging her fingers into her face, tearing at the flesh. "Azazel is coming, with his most prized possession! He will drown the world in blood and take all we hold dear!"

Amid the shrieks, a quiet voice whispered, _"Azazel is here…"_


	10. The World Can't See Me

_It's short, but it is an update. The next one will be longer._

* * *

 _Long, tapered claws caressed the torn flesh of the entity sitting upon the pedestal of stone. Hikari barely registered the pain as Azazel dug his claws into her rotting skin, her fiery orbs unblinking, focused on some middle distance._

 _Azazel knew that Hikari had tried to relay help to her friends,_ _piece by irritatingly small piece. It would seem like nothing to other demons or spectre that also had designs upon all realms; however, Hikari's friends were Koenma's former spirit detective and his comrades. Azazel knew that those damnable interlopers would do once they put every clue she could give them together._

 _Hikari's delicate flesh was the perfect sheath for his claws—and the perfect punishment for her audacity. Azazel's claws were poison to spirits like Hikari, and as tethered as she was to him, she would still be suffer from its potency._

" _My dear, dear Hikari…" purred Azazel, jerking her close to him. "You've done very badly to disobey. Haven't you?"_

 _Hikari didn't respond. She was completely stone, her eyes not looking at him. It irritated Azazel that, in spite of his attempt at sickly sweetness, Hikari was not as pliant to him as she had been as a child._

 _He blamed the damned Forbidden Child for this change in his favorite toy's attitude. Before that abomination, the light was slowly becoming tainted. Hikari belonged only to him. Now, she was trying to fight him, to gain a right to the afterlife, after so long Azazel had planned meticulously._

 _The Tsukiyomi bloodline had finally died out when those demons murdered Hikari. Azael would be damned to let everything fall to pieces now._

* * *

 _Hikari knew that Azazel was catching on._

 _She had been punished much more severely for drifting to the Ningenkai to whisper to her friends, but she knew that she had to be careful. Azazel had spectres, dark spirits everywhere, who would drag her back to oblivion for her audacity and Azazel would deliver._

 _She knew of Azazel's plan when she was a child, when she knew nothing of what he really was. When she had met her friends, Hikari sensed that Azazel was becoming more aggressive in obtaining her one way or another. When he finally had it, he became more volatile, his plans growing closer to fruition. Hikari made it her mission to not give away anything she was thinking, no matter what brutality she endured at Azazel's hands._

 _What kept her sane were her friends. The ones who accepted her, even though she hadn't the heart to tell them about Azazel when she was alive—which was why she tried to leave clues when she felt her sanity dwindling during the last moments of her life. She had buried her notebook, had hidden some of the clues in her apartment, before the demons had chased her into the woods before murdering her. She remembered it vividly._

 _She remembered the first slash into her sides; the tearing of skin and muscle; the breaking of bones; her throat going numb as her screams of agony went unheard; the blessed mercy of death when it finally came…_

 _Yes. Hikari remembered every single moment of her last minutes._

 _She had become a prisoner in the oblivion, Azazel chaining her down to where her lungs would have constricted had she still air to breath. She missed being alive…_

 _ **Don't think of happier times. If Azazel senses that longing, he'll destroy it.**_

 _She had to keep herself as cold as ice._

 _She may be dead, but Azazel had ways to make one wish they were insubstantial._


	11. The Ripped

_Hi, my poppets! Sorry for the delay. Personal things at home will cause me to be delayed as I am returning to school for creative writing. o3o_

* * *

The air had a brittle tang of death. The sky was such a violent shade of dark gray it almost seemed to be night. Gia let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding as she sat outside of Yusuke's apartment. After the group had separated with plans to search for Hikari's parents, Gia took possession of the notebook containing every single inch of Hikari's soul upon its pages. Even going through what little they had, Gia had not gotten the closure needed for her to consider letting go of this insanity that seemed to keep brewing.

Zeri, on the other hand, seemed to have gotten weaker with what little knowledge they've found in the notebook. Keiko had put her on bed rest and Zeri complied, knowing that Keiko could be fearsome when necessary. Yusuke stayed inside just in case of Zeri having an episode of night terrors. Gia knew Zeri would want to go through Hikari's notebook too, but Gia felt that this wouldn't help Zeri's condition any more than it would clarify why Hikari kept things from her friends.

Looking at the book in her lap, Gia raised a shaking hand to the cover, opening the notebook to see the photographs that decorated the inside. Hikari never had a camera of her own, so whatever pictures were taken she would want a copy to keep. Exhaling another breath, Gia turned the pages, going past the babble about Azazel. She barely skimmed the pages that seemed to have incomprehensible gibberish and paused when a particular date was etched on top of the page.

It was the day when she had returned from being around Hiei, trying to be stone, but the tears were evident in her eyes. Gia stilled, her body going completely cold. Hikari was never open about her true feelings, but reading them on this stained page, only added another dimension to the girl they knew.

" _All I wanted was to show him that acceptance was possible. That he had it. But he only pushed me away. At that moment, I knew what that agonizing tearing of my heart really meant. I knew what my feelings for him were, but I didn't care if he accepted those feelings. I wasn't looking for him to do that. I wanted to give him a safe place—and the only way I knew to do so was to show him the physical manifestation of my soul."_

Gia swallowed thickly before she turned the page. Whatever pushed Hikari to her emotionally dark place; she had written about Zeri and Gia, about everyone else, including her own helplessness…

" _I want to tell them what I see, that I see Azazel. But Azazel is crafty. All I want is to keep Zeri and Gia, Yusuke, Kurama, Kuwabara, Hiei…everyone. I don't want them to die or lose their minds like mama and daddy had. I don't want them to be murdered like Chika was. I don't want to watch my friends die. It's so wrong of me to keep this from them all, but how can I? I can't risk their lives. As selfish as it is, I can't let Azazel know that every single one of them is every possible weakness. But I sense Azazel knows. He always knows. And I'm scared. I'm terrified that I will not be able protect them in the end."_

"Oh, Kari…" Gia whispered, tears pricking her eyes, threatening to fall. "Why couldn't you come to us sooner?"

The question would never be answered. Hikari was terrified, which was why she hadn't told anyone about Azazel. What she hadn't divulged was what Azazel even was from what she could see…

But she had just skimmed the pages with the name. Gia backtracked, shifting through the pages, but all she found were the vague _"Azazel is always watching"_ , over and over and over, Hikari's handwriting becoming sloppy.

 _Always watching…._

 _Always there…_

 _Getting closer…_

Gia let out a frustrated scream, burying her face into her hands. Azazel had such a grip on Hikari that it frustrated her to no end! What was she supposed to even do to help? Angry tears spilled over her cheeks in scorching her skin as she dug her teeth into her lower lip deep enough to draw bleed.

"Woman, if you draw any blood, you may catch attention from a demon with less inhibitions." The cold voice that Gia was so familiar with caused her to raise her head and glared into the empty space before her. She could sense him to her right, but refused to grace him with even a glance. "What are you even doing here? You've proved that you don't care about her. You pick every chance you get to run the minute she gets under your skin," she spit the words out with venom, wanting the demon male to understand the hurt that was rooted into her very bones.

Silence met her words, hanging in the air like an accusation. Who was Gia kidding, her words _were_ an accusation; Hiei would be there, then left the minute Hikari got into his head. She knew that he knew that and she was in no mood to let him off the hook for it. "Why aren't you answering me, Hiei? I know you're there. I know she's in your head."

"You don't know anything. Don't act like you do." Hiei's tone was cold, biting. It was the harshness that was familiar, but there had to be something underlying it, something that made it crueler than anything he's ever said to Gia, Zeri, his comrades, and even Hikari.

"You feel guilty, don't you? For making her cry that day?" Gia whispered, looking at the pages as her tears fell steadily like water from a faucet. Silence yet again answered her and she was sure that Hiei had probably taken off for the Makai to dwell in working for one of the former Three Kings.

Hiei knew Gia could sense him, but her emotional state was fracturing worse than Zeri's mentality. Her feelings had clouded her senses, so she assumed he had gone when he was there, standing on the branch of the tree by Yusuke's apartment. It was barely considered a relief, but it had left Hiei to his thoughts. Gia accused him of not caring, of coming and going, of carrying guilt over Hikari. He shouldn't care, he didn't want to care, but it bothered him that it was otherwise. It bothered him even more that he hadn't even heard whispers of Hikari calling out for him recently, hadn't sensed the ice that would seep into his veins when remnants of her spirit were nearby. It unnerved him more that she wasn't in his head more than when she was, that she wasn't leaving any cryptic messages.

He had been indifferent to her when she lived, he realized. Hikari's presence had sparked a myriad of feelings within him—one being unmistakably peace. It was a feeling he hadn't felt in almost a long time and it bothered him that a human girl could spark such a thing within him. With Gia challenging whatever feelings he may have held toward Hikari, irritation gripped at him with guilt underlying the crevices. Yes, Hiei felt guilt and he didn't like it. He hated the guilt that twisted within him, especially when Gia mentioned the situation where Hikari bared her soul to him through that book Gia currently had on her lap.

Hiei wasn't sure why he understood the scars etched upon Hikari's soul, but the guilt that weighed him down was that he added another one to it. He scented the tears when he rejected her, but she hadn't cried in front of him, not a drop. She only smiled at him before she left him that day, taking that mindless peace with her. Soon after, he, Yusuke, Kurama, and Kuwabara had dealt with the whole Chapter Black incident and Hikari had simply faded away. She barely showed herself except for the times she had written Kurama, due to the latter's words. Her murder was almost more an accusation than a testament that she could not come to them, that her soul was so fragile that she could not bear to look them in the eye, afraid of what she'd find there.

* * *

Zeri bit hard onto her fingernails, crushing them between rows of teeth in sharp, rapid pain. Her eyes were wide, unblinking, not focused on the here and now. Her body rocked to and fro, teetering precariously to the edge of the sofa. Keiko sighed softly and wrapped her fingers gently around Zeri's wrist to tug her fingers from her mouth. Zeri's teeth tightened upon her fingers, the nails ripping sickeningly from her flesh as a splash of red dripped from her pale lips. Her dark eyes flickered to Keiko's face, not truly seeing her as her fingers dripped red.

When Yusuke went to Keiko's side, his lips twisted into a grimace. Zeri's mind seemed to be fracturing more and more lately and she disregarded the fact that she was bleeding. "Zeri," he ventured cautiously.

"Shhhh," Zeri interjected, pressing a bloody finger to her lips, smearing red onto her flesh. Her eyes glowed, manic, bloodshot. "Shhh, you'll scare her away."

"Do you mean Kari, Zeri?" asked Keiko softly. "If we're loud, she won't come."

She nodded, her lips stretching into a grin. "Azazel will let her see us if she is good."

Yusuke froze at the name, the name of the demon that has haunted Hikari. "What?"

"Azazel had to punish her…" Zeri's voice suddenly rang out twistedly, distorted. Demonic. "It was so delicious to watch."

Red blinded him and Yusuke was only aware of Keiko screaming, the door bursting open, and Zeri pinned to the floor, laughing mirthlessly. Yusuke's teeth ground together painfully, his grip on Zeri tightening.

"Urameshi, what the fuck are you doing?!" Gia's voice broke through him before he was aware of her fingers clinching around him, her grip tight as she wrenched his hand away from Zeri. But when the red faded, Yusuke took a good look at Zeri's face. Her complexion was utterly pale, her eyes wide with fear, her chest heaving as she looked back at him. "Yusuke?" she whispered.

Yusuke's own breathing was rapid, arm tensing beneath Gia's grip. "What…"

"D-Did I…what did I do?" Zeri's voice was reduced to a whimper and Keiko had rushed to her side to help her to her feet. Yusuke's gaze fell to his hand, watching it shake violently. _Why did I grab her like that…?_

"Did I do something?" Zeri asked, covering her mouth shakily. Gia gently took Zeri by her elbow to lift her. "No, hon, you didn't," she mumbled, her eyes flickering to Yusuke's. Yusuke saw the different emotions within hers and knew only one course of action.

They had to find Hikari's parents and fast.


	12. SCREAM

_Oh, look another update. ouo My college course has me spilling out updates faster than a bunny on carrots! Of course I was inspired by two songs that had me write this chapter. In case you want to listen to them, one is called "Hunger" by Amaranthe and the other is called "Innocence" by Tarja._

* * *

"You don't remember what happened before then, Zeri?" Gia watched her friend with concern in her eyes as she and Keiko bandaged the girl's fingers. Zeri's behavioral change was sudden; Yusuke, with his clenched fists and wide eyes, was completely shaken at his violence toward Zeri when she had begun to talk as if she were a demon within the depths of Hell.

Zeri shook her head. "When I opened my eyes, Yusuke was over me with a furious look on his face and you were pulling him away from me," she mumbled, hanging her head. Her skin had regained some color after the episode, but she wasn't in what anyone would call great shape. Her dark hair was lanky and damaged, tangling around her face from neglect as well as her debilitating reactions to things. Her eyes were becoming more haunted, too large for her face. Gia's eyes flew to Yusuke as he ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. "What the hell is going on?" he growled and Gia could only wonder the same thing.

"Done," Keiko murmured, finishing the last of Zeri's fingers. Zeri gave the brunette an apologetic nod. "I'm sorry, Keiko. I'm causing trouble for you and Yusuke and you guys are just taking care of me like I'm a kid," she sighed.

"This is has been hard on you, Zeri." Keiko squeezed Zeri's hand gently. "This has been hard on all of us, but you and Gia feel it the most."

Gia wished Keiko hadn't said that. Yusuke's woman had good intentions, she always had; however, it was just too much at the moment. Not when they were no closer to finding Hikari's parents than they ever were, even armed with the precious notebook Hikari would never let anyone read to save her life—

She paused, her eyes widening. "…Son of a bitch."

Yusuke, Keiko, and Zeri looked at her. "What?" asked Yusuke, crossing his arms.

"Hiei." Gia looked to the former spirit detective, her eyes widening impossibly farther. "He's the only one who read Hikari's journal. He know."

Yusuke's brows creased over his eyes before, slowly, comprehension dawned on him.

"He knows where Hikari's parents are."

* * *

Kurama caught the scent of the fire demon long before he even appeared in the fox's window of his home. "I wasn't expecting you, Hiei. Has something happened?" he asked, shuffling through the papers on his desk. He had been going through what he could of what little correspondence Hikari had with him, to find some clue in order to put this mystery to bed.

Hiei was silent as he slid into Kurama's room through the window, crimson eyes fixed on the scraps of paper the older demon was shifting through. "…Those were all hers, weren't they? Letters from the girl?"

"Hiei, you've been closer to her than even her best friends, the least you can do is say her name when we are alone." Kurama turned to look at the younger demon, jade eyes narrowed slightly at his behavior. Hiei met Kurama's gaze, arms crossed and expression colder than the winter winds. The silent standoff lasted only for a moment before Hiei averted his gaze with an almost bitter sigh. Kurama could almost decipher the root of Hiei's current mood, but if said aloud, the fire demon would deny it.

"They'll look for me soon enough," muttered Hiei, uncrossing his arms so that they fell to his side. "After all, she bared her soul to me through that book."

"Hikari's journal. You read it through its entirety?"

"Of course I have. The foolish girl was by my side, watching me the entire time."

"Has she written about her parents at all?"

At this question, Hiei remained silent, his eyes not meeting Kurama's at all. Kurama was prepared to chalk it up to Hiei's pride before noticing his fingers flexing in agitation. With a frown, Kurama reached for the tiny box he had taken from Hikari's broken apartment, opening it and shifting through the small scraps of things she had kept folded inside.

"What are you doing?" Hiei spat out the question as though he tasted something foul on his tongue.

Kurama's eyes flicked to him briefly. "I believe you need a reminder, Hiei."

Those crimson eyes flew to the fox, a flash of irritation searing through them. "Of what?"

"On why you could never truly dismiss the girl as nothing."

"I don't know what you believe, Kurama, but you can't possibly think the girl means a damn thing to me."

"I don't think, I _know_ she does, Hiei." Kurama's fingers brushed against something that lay flat at the bottom of the tiny box before wrapping his fingers around it and pulling it out. It was a small USB drive in the shape of a turtle—such a strange thing for Hikari to have, for no one has ever seen her use a computer before.

Hiei narrowed his eyes at the tiny thing in Kurama's hand. "What is that?"

"Precisely what I want to know." Kurama looked toward his desk at his computer before awakening it from sleep mode and plugging the tiny turtle USB in. He sensed Hiei's approach, his wonder at this strange device the humans have, before Kurama moved to click onto the prompt to see what was inside the drive.

There was only one file on the drive. A video file, the date signifying that it was made months before Hikari died and yet it was not too long after she had completely lost contact with everyone else. If it was a possible clue, they had to know what was in it, so Kurama clicked on the file. The video popped up its loading screen before the camera flickered on. It was extremely grainy and hard to make out, but it was clear that it was dark. There were sounds of someone breathing before it slowly focused on a face.

Wide, fiery eyes glistening with tears gazed into the camera, almost obscured by strands of raven-colored hair. Lips were parted slightly as heavy breaths escaped, the sound almost louder than possible due to the speakers. Sweat clung to her skin as she raised a shaking hand to push her hair from her face—a hand that was marred by deep cuts, blood staining the pale skin a deep red. She raised the other hand, in the same state as the one that, to push back the strands on her left side. There was terror in her eyes as tears fell down her cheeks, the blood stained on the right side of her face mixing with the tears. Her breaths were becoming shallower, almost as if she were trying to catch her breath, trying to be calm, as she dragged her hands down.

"What's happening?" Hikari's broken voice whispered through the speakers, her eyes flickering left and right. "I don't know what's happening…I feel something _growing_ inside of me and…" She paused, her entire posture still. There was no sound at first—they couldn't even hear Hikari's breaths through the speakers—before the video buffered for briefest second. In that second, however, it was made plainly clear due to one fact: a grotesque, demonic hand—the skin scabbed and decayed as though it were underwater for decades—with long, tapered claws crept into view on Hikari's right shoulder. Hikari sucked in a breath as she breathed "Azazel". Slowly, she turned her head to head to the right—right as the hand on her shoulder tightened, the claws digging deep into her flesh. The video lost focus the moment Hikari let out a bloodcurdling, bone-chilling scream. The noises that accompanied the screaming were sounds of things being torn, shredded, thrown—and yet nothing could be seen. Kurama strained his ears, picking up something underlying all the hysteria Hikari was making.

There was laughter—cold, mirthless, demonic laughter—that rang out beneath the horror Hikari was experiencing at that moment before the video ended.

Kurama could scarcely breathe at the moment. He had seen his fair of horrors in the Makai, but with what he just watched…

He dared to look at Hiei, knowing the male watched in spite of his earlier words of not caring about Hikari. Hiei's face was pale, his eyes still fixated on the screen as though the video would start where it left off. His lips pulled back, baring his fangs as a low growl escaped him. Kurama didn't have a Jagan Eye, but even he could see that Hikari's distress had upset Hiei greatly. With another growl, Hiei turned away, moving toward the window before pausing. "You want to know where her parents are, right?" he asked softly, his voice cold.

Kurama wasn't one to beat around the bush by this point. "Yes."

"The girl's mother…she is in the asylum not far from here."

"You've found Hikari's mother?"

"Yeah, I did. What of it? I don't need to be involved in this."

"Hiei, you are just as involved as the rest of us."

Hiei turned to glare at Kurama. "Because of what? Your theory that I behave like a mated demon when it comes to _her_?"

"Do you truly despise her because of the fact that she's human? Or is it something else?" Kurama asked, meeting Hiei's glare without any shaken resolve.

"Take the information and do with it what you will." Hiei turned away, vaulting himself out the window before Kurama could say another word. Within one heartbeat, his phone rang and Kurama answered it swiftly. "Hello?"

"Kurama?" Gia's voice broke through the connection, her breaths heavy as if she ran a marathon, but the fox suspected otherwise. "Where's Hiei? I think he knows where-"

"He knows exactly where," Kurama interjected quickly, effectively silencing Gia. "He just told me."

* * *

 _She was curled into a ball, tears streaming down her cheeks after this…power, dare she call it…was unleashed. She was in the dark alone, her throat ripped by her screams and no one was there…_ _ **Yes, she knew that memory. She could feel the tremors through her ghostly body of something snapping. Her spiritual tie to Hiei was growing tighter and she could feel the madness she was inflicting upon him through it.**_

 _ **She made herself into a disease, a contagion of insanity that even spread to Zeri.**_

 _ **She dug her thin fingers into the stone she lay upon, the fire that created her eyes slowly dripping over a pale, damaged cheek. She had no breath to release. All she had was the curse she left behind that tainted those she's ever touched and still shackled her in the afterlife.**_


	13. Return

_This was the longest chapter I've written. This means the action is starting to get interesting._

* * *

 _She was rocking back and forth, hands over her face, as long, black hair fell around her. The skirt of her dress was spread about, ripped in some places to show bits of flesh of her leg. Hauntingly broken sobs echoed around the abyss, as flashes cut through the black. Blood spilling from mouths of unspeakably cruel demons, people screaming in agony, flames swallowing cities. The sky was a burning crimson color, the color of blood. There was no sun, no moon. No peace. It was hell on Earth. At the helm stood a throne made of bones. Upon it sat the girl they've been trying to save, her body healed as if she had never been torn to pieces. Donned in a black dress, she watched the carnage with a demon by her side. A decayed hand crept onto her face, fingers barely covering her eyes. Her eyes weren't the warm embers they were used to. No, instead they were pitch black and a slight, cruel smile twisted her lips…_

 _The torn spectre broke through the flashes of the vision with a scream, her eyes raining blood…_

Kuwabara woke up, panting heavily as his senses flared. The only time he's ever felt this kind of malevolence was when Hikari bleeding darkness from her eyes. And his vision, it wasn't good. Not if everyone was going to die. His cellphone buzzed on the nightstand beside him and he reached for it, answering the call as soon as Yusuke's name flashed on the caller ID. "What is it, Urameshi?"

"We may have an idea about where Kari's parents are. You in?" Yusuke asked, his tone cool. At the mention of Hikari, Kuwabara shivered at the thought of his nightmare. However, he knew that this nightmare was a sign of some sort; he and his friends may have to go to war with the very girl whose soul they were trying to put to rest.

"Kuwabara? Hey, you still there, idiot?" Yusuke's voice was laced with utter impatience, jerking Kuwabara from his thoughts. "Are you in or out?"

"In," he replied. "But I got something to tell you first."

* * *

The afternoon sun burned through the skies as Yusuke and the others gathered in front of his apartment. Gia's teeth furrowed into her lip as her violet eyes flickered to Zeri in concern. Zeri had demanded that she come with them to the asylum to find, in spite of her frailness and the complete fact that she had suffered from breakdowns that would have driven any one insane.

Kurama's expression was stoic, but Yusuke knew his friend well enough to know something had shaken him. What unnerved the usually calm demon was beyond Yusuke's comprehension and he knew Kurama would explain soon. Kuwabara, however, was utterly shaken, his skin pale. From what he had explained, Yusuke could understand. If he had a nightmare like that, he would have lost his head a long time ago.

The only one missing was Hiei, not that Yusuke was surprised. The fire koorime, oddly enough, was about as composed as Zeri. Even the mere mention of Hikari had him on tenterhooks and Yusuke was genuinely concerned for Hiei's wellbeing when it came to the fire-eyed girl.

After a tense silence, Gia broke it tersely. "Is anyone going to explain why Kuwabara's shaking like a leaf and why Kurama's been tense for the better part of the time we've spent standing out here?" she asked, crossing her arms. "Feel like explaining?"

Yusuke turned to look at Kuwabara, raising an eyebrow. Kuwabara tensed a bit before exhaling loudly. "I had a nightmare about Kari, I think. She was crying, but then the whole world flashed before my eyes. Everything was completely destroyed," he explained slowly. "There was a throne made of bones and a different Kari sat on it."

"What do you mean different?" whispered Zeri, looking at Kuwabara.

Kuwabara's face paled impossibly more, the color absolutely drained from his cheeks. "Kari was sitting on that throne. And her eyes…her eyes were black."

Kuwabara's words were met with stunned silence. "What are you talking about, Kuwabara?" Gia demanded shortly. "She's dead and her soul is being held somewhere in the dark and she can't even move on to the Reikai without our help!"

"Was she still a spirit in that vision, Kuwabara?" asked Kurama, his voice tensed and cool. Trembling, Kuwabara shook his head. "She…had a body. A real, plain as day body."

"How is that possible?" Zeri's voice trembled, biting her lip and she reached to grab Gia's hand. "How can Hikari have a real body if she…if she's…?"

"Hey, calm down." Gia's tone dropped an octave, her tone soft to not further alarm Zeri. "Won't do you much good to get riled up."

Nodding, Zeri relaxed, but Yusuke could still feel in unease radiating off of her in droves. Kuwabara's explanation caused waves of discomfort and Kurama could sense his next words will further disrupt what little normalcy they've had. However, it had to be said. "I've found something among Hikari's things," the demon fox began.

Yusuke remembered Kurama taking the small box from Hikari's apartment that contained ramblings on little scraps of paper. "There was a video Hikari had recorded. It was dated after she had isolated herself from us. She had mentioned something growing inside of her."

"What do you mean growing?" asked Yusuke.

"She didn't say what it was," Kurama answered swiftly, tensing at the memory of the video he'd watch, the image of Hikari's face full of fear before his mind was bruised by her soul-shredding scream. Then he recalled when he and Gia had gone back to Hikari's apartment and encountered Chika. "The Tsukiyomi family saw the darkest entities that haunted humanity since before the demons began to devour us." That was what Chika had said, an ability that Hikari hadn't developed yet. However…

"Azazel." That was the name on Hikari's scraps of paper, the name she uttered in the video with fear in her eyes, the name belonging to the decayed hand that touched her and caused her to scream alone. Hikari was able to see the entities, yet what other abilities did she hide from them?

"We should go," Gia muttered softly. "We know where her folks are, we should go there while we still have time to find out how to help Kari's soul."

There was a collective nod among the group. They uncovered things about Hikari that raised more questions and less answers. They needed those answers. They needed them, knowing the soul they were desperate to take back from the clutches of the dark.

* * *

The asylum gleamed in the sunlight like a jewel on a prized crown, the windows glinting. Such a polished, sturdy building that hid away the rotting sanity within.

Hiei considered this from where he stood, watching the humans bringing out a body. The scent of rotting wildflowers reached him, a familiar scent because he had smelled it before.

 _The girl's mother has passed…_ The thought drifted through his mind as they took the body away to wherever it was they took bodies to. The woman was still healthy as any insane person could have been when he saw her last, muttering to herself about Azazel and about the girl. As soon as Hikari flashed through Hiei's mind, his teeth ground together. His gaze averted to the ground, where he saw the group walking toward the asylum.

"What happened?" Zeri's trembling voice echoed into the air. "Was someone…?"

Clicking his tongue, Hiei jumped down from the branch he stood upon. He caught their attention quickly.

"You were here the entire time, Hiei?" asked Kurama, jade eyes narrowed just slightly.

Hiei's own eyes narrowed in response. "I gave you the information for you to come to this place. You all could have been here sooner to see the girl's mother."

"Kari's mom was here?" Surprise etched Yusuke's tone and face, making the former detective look like the fool Hiei had always expected him to be. "What happened to her? Was she the one in that body bag?"

When Hiei didn't respond, Gia reacted with a violent "Damn!" They had come all this way and it was too late…

"She would not have been able to tell you much, anyway," Hiei bit out harshly. "The woman was just as insane as you expected."

Zeri's eyes flashed to Hiei, anger surging through her body. "You knew this and you kept it from us," she growled to the Forbidden Child. "All the while, you've said this has nothing to do with you! That you didn't care about Kari! Why are you even here? Why bother at all?"

"Hey, calm down," Kuwabara began gently, reaching for Zeri in an attempt to calm her but she shrugged him off, her anger as palpable as the clothes she wore. "Why the hell can he get a pass on this?!" she snapped, shaking her head furiously. "Kari's mom was the only lead we could have had to figure out why she's suffering in her afterlife and not once has Hiei ever gave a damn!"

"Zeri…" Yusuke began as Gia gently grabbed at her friend's arm in concern, but Zeri was beyond herself.

"What _right_ does he even have to care now?!"

"Sanzeris." Kurama's voice was stern as he directed his attention to the brunette. Zeri glared into his jade eyes as he spoke. "You know better. Regardless of how Hiei deals with Hikari's plight, he has as much a right as we do to care. Hikari did have feelings for him, do not forget."

"What does that matter when he's broken her heart over and over again!" Zeri shook of Gia's arm violently, her anger getting the best of her. "The way I see it, he's never cared about her and she's wasted her time plaguing him with nightmares of her suffering!" With that, she turned on her heel and ran down the street.

"Zeri! Oh, damn it…" Gia took off after Zeri. The boys remained where they were. Zeri's outburst was a catharsis she needed after all of this and Gia was the only person to calm her after such venting.

Yusuke turned to look toward Hiei. "Did any of what she said register in there?" he asked, crossing his arms.

Hiei averted his gaze, refusing to meet the former detective's eyes. He couldn't admit to it, but Zeri's words did sting. Why did he care? Why does the fact that Zeri's accusations stabbed into him like a sword swiftly thrust into his gut?

 _"You're…trembling…"_

 _"Do you want to forget me, Hiei?"_

 _"I'm not good at explaining my feelings."_

 _"My soul is better at paper."_

 _"I can't protect you all when you dig into things that ought to stay buried!"_

Hikari's words rang in his skull, enough to irritate him further. Hiei hated the girl and yet…

" ** _That is your sin. You long for acceptance, love, and yet you push away the very creature who is all too willing to give it to you."_** Hiei never felt cold before, but that chill he received when he first heard those words…

"Hey, don't zone out on us!" Kuwabara's obnoxious voice grated Hiei's eardrums, brewing a fresh surge of irritation for the human male.

"Who said anything about zoning out?" he growled, turning away. "The foolish girl was right. What reason do I have to be bothered with this?"

"It is because of how close you and Hikari were," Kurama told him, his tone sharpened by the sternness he had with Zeri. "She means more to you than you care to admit, Hiei, and the guilt within you may signify that you have failed to protect her."

 _Damn Kurama…_ Hiei's mind was already in turmoil, he didn't need the fox to try and explain it to him.

"We should go and find the girls, don't you think?" Yusuke asked, jabbing his thumb in the direction Gia and Zeri ran off in. "If we aren't there to protect them, they'll hurt themselves."

"Agreed. Let's not waste time at the moment," Kurama nodded.

* * *

"Zeri, why did you say those things to him?" Gia asked as the girls sat on a park bench. The park was empty despite the time of day and it was the farthest Gia had seen Zeri run (hell, move at all) during this whole ordeal.

Zeri covered her face. "I'm just…I'm mad, okay? Hikari loved him so freaking much and he's not even showing that he cared at all, even when she was alive! How can I be okay with him caring now after all his bull of not giving a damn about her!"

"Maybe because we have to for Kari," murmured Gia, wrapping an arm around her friend. "Kari wouldn't want us to be angry with him. Hell, he was like that before we all met the guys, you know."

Exhaling a heavy sigh, Zeri lowered her hands. "I know…"

"Come on, let's find the guys." Gia stood up. "They're probably worried about us."

Nodding, Zeri stood up also. "Okay-"

They both tensed. Being around Yusuke and his friends as long as they had been, their awareness was extremely heightened. There was an abnormal amount of spirit energy saturating the air of the park.

"Where is that energy coming from?" Gia muttered, instinctively reaching for Zeri's hand.

"We should go…" Zeri gasped, her free hand gripping at Gia's wrist.

"Zeri, what's wrong?" Gia slid her eyes over to follow the direction of Zeri's gaze—

-Right as her complexion paled. "It…can't be…"

* * *

"Where in the hell could they be? They can't have ran that far," Yusuke grumbled, running his fingers through his hair roughly in irritation. Yet anyone who knew him well could understand he was worried. Not leaving Gia and Zeri alone was partly why they hadn't been attacked by any rogue demons; they had one of the guys with them until they were safely asleep in bed.

"We can track them by their scent," Kurama said, his own jade eyes flickering about to observe in case of any danger. The demon fox had empathy towards humans and his concern for the two surviving human females was enough to spur him to keep them safe. Despite that he and Hikari had not been close they had shared enough conversation for Kurama to do her memory justice in protecting her dearest friends.

"I sure hope they're okay. Gia can handle herself fine, but Zeri's been feeling antsy," muttered Kuwabara before tensing. Waves of spirit energy smacked him right in the face, sending chills and tremors straight up his spine. "Whoa, what was that?"

"You felt it too?" Yusuke asked, suppressing a shudder. That energy was cold, chilling, worse than any demon he'd fought as a spirit detective.

"Did you catch that scent, Kurama?" Hiei asked in a low voice, his crimson eyes narrowing.

"I have. Is it familiar?" asked Kurama, glancing at the Forbidden Child.

Hiei inhaled the scent before it triggered the memory with sharp clarity. The memory of rotting flora…

 _The girl's scent before…_

A high-pitched scream shattered through the air, the voice belonging to Zeri. "Let's move!" Yusuke yelled, his stomach knotting inside as he led the run to the direction of the scream. The scenery blurred from either side and he was aware of his friends following right behind him, as the remaining echo of the scream brought them to the park.

Gia and Zeri were transfixed upon something, gripping onto each other for dear life, Zeri nearly collapsing to the ground. Hysteria radiated off of them in waves, smashing over the four males like rocks.

"Hey!" Kuwabara called out to them. "Guys, what's wrong?!"

Gia's eyes didn't flicker to them as the males moved closer, but she was whispering under her breath. "It can't be…this can't be…"

"What are you talking about?" Kurama knelt down beside Gia, resting a hand against her shoulder. Zeri slowly raised her hand, her thin index finger pointing and the males turned their gazes to the direction she was pointing at—only to freeze in their spots.

Barely hovering above ground, her flesh healed with nary a scar—almost as though she had never been killed in the first place—was the very girl they were striving to bring to the Reikai. A breeze blew through the trees, toying with her long, black hair. She wore only black, the skirts of her dress trailing the grass instead of her feet. Her eyes were closed, the tremendous spirit energy spilling from her. A soft sigh left her lips as her eyes were slowly beginning to open.

"Kari? That you?" Yusuke asked in a shaking voice. He couldn't believe this. Koenma had told Yusuke every gruesome detail he had about Hikari's murder—the wounds she sustained killed her, there was no way she was here before their eyes.

"This is creepy," Kuwabara shuddered, rubbing his arms. As sensitive as he was, the energy Hikari was exuding was enough to send chills throughout his body. "That dream I had…it's coming true…"

"Kurama…" The fox turned to look at Gia, whose eyes were fixed on his and rapidly filling with tears. "She came back to us…so why isn't she saying anything?"

A rapid swell of dread was filling Kurama when he turned his eyes back on Hikari. Her eyes were half-way open now, the energy rising quickly and coiling around them like nooses coming from an executioner.

Hiei fixed his eyes on her, activating his Jagan in order to probe her mind to see if this wasn't just some hallucination. Just as quickly, bile coated his throat all the way up to his tongue.

There was nothing in the vastness of her mind. Not even a memory.

Her eyes completely opened and the girls let out cries of dismay. Hikari's eyes were pitch-black, the traces of the fire in her eyes vanished.

This girl was the one they sought, Hiei knew this implicitly. This was no illusion or cheap trick by a vengeful enemy. This was the girl that was dear friends of his comrades, of the two human girls who were unable to even stand. Her scent was the very same from before she walked out of their lives, before she _walked out of his._

 _Woman_ , he pushed his thought to her mind, to get some form of reaction from the human before them that was pushing energy from her frail body like a tsunami. She was powerful, so much so that he could taste it. His demonic instincts roared for battle, but he forced himself to rein the urges back.

When he got no reaction, not even a whisper of her voice through his mind, he tried something that he would have never attempted in normal circumstances.

 _"Hikari."_ He felt the eyes of his comrades upon him then. It was the first time he ever said her name. This moment was the only time she would ever hear it.

Hikari's eyes fixated on him before a twisted, sadistic smile twisted her lips, as her energy crackled around her hands.

* * *

Deep in the bowels of his lair, Azazel 's own lips were curled into a malicious grin, sharpened fangs peeking from beneath his hood. His prized weapon, their precious light, was now the enemy of those she tried so long to protect from him. He would use her to take their souls and spill their blood until there was nothing left of them.


	14. The Darkest Part

He was positively purring. He had finally gotten his clutches upon the youngest daughter, the final generation of Tsukiyomi. Interlocking his long, tapered fingers, blood red eyes glowing ominously as he gazed into the Seeing Orb. His prized weapon required much string pulling, but when he finally had her soul betwixt his fingers, he was pleased. Her soul was powerful in death, her abilities had been locked within her mere mortal shell of a body; so he had his underlings _fix_ the problem and thrust her rotting, broken soul back in.

His prize was nearly tainted by the spirit detective and his comrades, going so far as to even fall in _love_ with the Forbidden Child among them. It had taken him a while to shatter her, but he had done it. Her heart was completely broken, her will to return to them shattered. Once her soul aligned with her new body, he sent her into the living world to lay waste to it, a sign to the Reikai and Makai that a new era was beginning.

What luck that her first kills were the ones she longed to protect.

* * *

Corrupted energy radiated from her palms as Hikari gazed at them with her dark, unfathomable eyes. Yusuke's insides were chilled to stone as he stared at the spectre before him, her smile saturated with malicious intent. He could feel his friends' trembling from where he stood.

The crackling energy vanished from Hikari's hands as moved toward them slowly, that smile still in place. It was unlike their girl to have that kind of horrible expression upon her face. She was so soft, so kind, and wouldn't hurt anyone…

"K-Kari…?" whispered Zeri, her eyes filling with tears rapidly, the crystalline drops chasing each other down her cheeks. "It's u-us…y-your friends."

" _Friends?_ " The voice that escaped her lips pelted them like glass shards, the jagged edges piercing them. It was not the gentle cooing they were used to; no, Hikari's voice was horribly distorted, human yet demonic. "You aren't friends. You are _prey_."

When she moved closer, Yusuke and Kuwabara jumped before Gia and Zeri, Kurama getting to his feet to keep the threat at bay. "W-Wait!" shrieked Zeri, reaching to clutch at the back of Yusuke's jacket, her eyes frenzied with emotion. "You can't! Guys, you can't, that's Kari!"

Gia's lower lip trembled, but she was unable to make a sound. Her hand searched blindly for Zeri before it made contact with her forearm. "W-We can't…we can't hurt her. We're trying to save her…so why?" she gasped.

"Gia, compose yourself," Kurama urged her, concern sinking his heart, afraid that his words were falling on deaf ears. If Gia lost her composure, there was no way they could inflict a blow on Hikari without her friends willing to throw themselves forward to defend her.

"What the hell do we do, Urameshi?" muttered Kuwabara, his fingers curling against his palm.

"If we don't do something, she's going to kill us," Yusuke growled, keeping his gaze fixed on Hikari. She hadn't moved closer. All she did was stand there now, the smile gone. Her vacant eyes were fixed upon them, and she tilted her head. Zeri looked to Yusuke. "She won't hurt us…r-right? She hasn't yet," she murmured.

A sadistic grin stretched across Hikari's lips, her tainted energy crackling around her hand as she raised it quickly to strike—

Kurama's whip lashed out to wind itself around the raised hand, the fox demon keep his grip to make sure that she was incapable of striking. She barely flinched; turning her attention to what was keeping her still, before slowing turning her gaze back to the group. Both her smile and eyes widened.

A piercing shriek filled the air as Zeri doubled over, clutching at her hair in clumps. "Zeri!" Gia screamed, wrapping her arms around her friend tightly. "Zeri, what's wrong?! Answer me!"

A wild, frenzied laugh escaped Hikari's lips. "Oh my, oh my," she cooed, flexing her hand as the energy flashed like lightning. "Disease in her mind, disease, disease, disease." Her gaze landed on Hiei and she pointed at him. The fire koorime recoiled, pointing his blade toward the girl. Hikari's lips were stretched taut into a mocking smile. "Disease in you too, demon. Disease, disease."

Quick as a flash, she thrust her hand toward Kurama's Rose Whip wrapped tightly around her wrist, the crackling of dark energy burned through the whip, breaking the hold Kurama had on her.

"Get the girls out of here!" Yusuke roared, jumping to action. Kurama and Kuwabara quickly grabbed Zeri and Gia, both of whom were in too much shock to protest, to get them to safety. "There's no escape!" Hikari screamed and lunged, the remnants of the Rose Whip around her arm falling off.

"You're not getting near them!" Yusuke aimed his finger, his spirit energy building in his finger. " _ **SPIRIT GUN**_!"

A large blast of aura crashed into Hikari dead on, sending her body flying backwards before she skidded into a halt. Yusuke, panting heavily, lowered his hand only slightly. Despite that he never had a problem fighting with Kuwabara or pounding on people, Hikari wasn't just anyone.

Steam rose from her skin before the burns from Yusuke's reigun healed before his eyes. "What the-"

Hikari lowered her arms right as Hiei flitted toward her, readying to drive his blade through her heart at the same time she seized the blade in both of her hands. Though her eyes were as black as his heart, Hiei couldn't push the blade past her bleeding palms. Something deeper than his demonic instincts overpowered him, restrained him from putting the girl back into her grave. Before Hiei could react, Hikari thrust her hand, enveloped in her energy, through his abdomen.

White-hot, nearly blinding pain shot throughout his body as though he were struck by lightning and lit aflame by an inferno stronger than even he could muster. His eyes flew down, seeing her removing her blood-soaked hand from his abdomen, his ears buzzing at the sound of his name being called, as his mind seemed to fracture in the presence of the tainted light they searched for.

 _Her laughter…_

 _Her ease…_

 _"You can read minds, can't you? You know why I come to see you day after day…"_

That's when an image seeped into his consciousness, an image of the girl in the forest the day she died, chased by three demons. She had turned around, her eyes ablaze, as she spoke to the demons condescendingly. Almost _taunting_ them, something that was unlike her. Two demons were crumpled in pain as she fixed those eyes on them, but the third had attacked, claws digging into her flesh and she crashed onto the grassy floor. It wasn't long before his mind saw, piece by piece, just how claws and fangs had torn her; how she was unable to scream; how she slowly bled to death…

Until a spectre—a figure he had seen before—ripped the demons in turn before snatching the girl's spirit.

"Hiei!" Yusuke yelled out as the fire demon collapsed to his knees and Hikari dragged her tongue over the blooded flesh of her hand. Her smile was cruel as she gazed down at Hiei. "You poor thing…poor, poor thing…" she murmured before she lunged toward Yusuke again.

"Shit!" Yusuke stumbled back, astounded at the speed of which Hikari was attacking before her presence flitted past him. He spun around quickly. "NO!"

Hikari's bloodied palm was crackling again, preparing another strike—this time toward Zeri. Kuwabara quickly shoved Zeri behind him, his energy forming in his hand to the shape of a blade. "Don't come any closer!" he shouted.

Her eyes widened as she gazed at Kuwabara, and he couldn't defend in time. Dark energy permeated his insides, shooting right into his mind with a pain of a millions daggers stabbing at random intervals at the same time, that he crumpled, leaving Zeri vulnerable.

The brunette's eyes widened, tears rapidly filling them, as she raised her arms to defend herself.

"Zeri!" Gia screamed, writhing in Kurama's grasp and the redheaded fox couldn't keep her restrained. She broke free of his grip and rushed toward Zeri before Kurama could even keep her back. Gia could only see Zeri's terrified expression burning into her retinas before screams shattered the air.

Zeri's eyes widened, her hands clapped over her mouth to block the silent screams against her palms, tears brimming in her eyes before chasing down her cheeks. Tiny flecks of red stained her cheeks, turning pink when mixing with tears. Kuwabara's arm banded around Zeri to keep her from crashing to the ground, his own eyes pricking with tears that he refused to release in order to try to be strong. Yusuke's brown eyes were widening, his jaw clenching, his heart stopping cold. Kurama tried to reign in his demonic instinct to tear, his protectiveness as swift as his storm of guilt. Hiei, pressing his hand against the wound he suffered, couldn't even wrap his own cynical mind around what had just transpired.

Hikari's hand dislodged itself slowly from Gia's chest, reeking with the scent of blood. Her long dark hair cascaded over her shoulder as Gia fell to the ground, the grass dyed that deep crimson…

A horrific, shattering scream tore itself from Hikari's throat as she threw her head back. Her energy flared around her, like a raging cocoon, unable to have them come close to subdue her for it was too powerful to overcome. A thin stream of black traced the contour of her right cheek and Kuwabara was the first to see the change in her eyes.

"What…did I…" she whispered brokenly. The darkness that obscured the fire in Hikari's eyes seemed to drain as the black tears fell. Her chest heaved, full of emotion, as she looked at her hands in absolute horror. Her irises wavered as she let out a piercing, agonized wail again. "What did I do?!"

"Don't!" Kuwabara yelled suddenly, seeing Yusuke and Kurama in his line of sights readying to subdue Hikari, her fierce energy be damned. "I think she's back. Kari, is that you?" he asked softly, trying not to startle her.

"Gia…Gia, I'm so sorry…" Hikari whispered, bringing her bloodied hands to her face and dragging them down, staining her pale, snowy skin red. "What did I… _How could I…_ I didn't want this to happen…"

"Hikari," Kurama began, moving closer to her cautiously. The scent of Hiei and Gia's blood were potent on her, but the scent of decayed flora overpowered the coppery tang of blood, seeping from the girl's pores. Something about her being before them in the flesh was wrong, unnatural. That's when his mind placed it together.

Whomever Azazel was that haunted Hikari in life had turned her into a monster in her death.

"No…I didn't want to hurt anyone…that's why I stayed away…" Hikari moaned, writhing to and fro in torment. The darkness that engulfed her saturated the air, threading into their lungs. "What am I…How am I still…here? I…I died, I know it." She was mumbling to herself now, something that Zeri had done when afflicted by night terrors. She clutched at tufts of raven hair, close to wrenching it from her scalp. "And it's even stronger…"

Yusuke walked toward Hikari, raising a shaking hand. "Hey, kid," he tried at a lighthearted tone, even while Hikari was writhing in self-hatred above Gia's body. "Take a deep breath. We're all friends here. We know you didn't mean it." His hand landed gently upon her shoulders.

" _ **DON'T TOUCH ME**_!" Hikari screamed, whirling around so violently that Yusuke stumbled back, caught off guard, as a blast of energy exploded from her, slicing through the defensive auras of all present before she made a move to flee. Hiei reacted then, the sharp edge of his katana pressed against Hikari's neck, cold steel against pale flesh. Hikari's eyes widened, an unusual sight now more than it ever had been when she lived as a human. Her left eye was still an abyss of darkness, whereas her right eye unveiled the ember that burned quietly within her.

"Who knew you had powers we could only dream of, girl," Hiei hissed, pressing the blade harder against her skin.

"Hiei, don't antagonize her!" Kurama warned, his instincts blaring for him to stop the fire demon before he set off another drastic assault from Hikari. The energy bursting from her was enough for her to damage them—she had no need for using her hands.

"Silence, Kurama. This girl just struck down someone she called a friend and you wish to show her mercy?" Hiei's crimson eyes glared into Hikari's eyes, taking in the insanity etched upon her face. Something flickered in her gaze then, here, and then gone; before she lowered her hands, releasing the locks of her own hair she so tightly grasped. The strange trail of black that dripped from her right eye stained the pale skin of her cheek as her lips parted slightly.

"Hiei…" she whispered, lucidity clear in her eyes, gasping when steel broke the skin of her neck. "Please…"

"What?" he growled. "What request of mercy can you possibly ask in your situation?"

"It isn't mercy that I ask for." Her voice shook, ripples in the calm that he remembered, that his comrades remembered. "Kill me, Hiei. Please."

"NO!" Zeri screamed, her shock saturating the one word. "Hiei, don't you _dare_! You'll be beyond saving if you even consider it!"

"Zeri!" Kuwabara grabbed at the brunette's elbows to stop her from flailing wildly. "Zeri, calm down!"

"I can't lose her now!" Tears were burning down Zeri's cheeks. "I already lost Gia because of whatever is hurting Kari! She would never do this, not ever in a million years! I refuse to believe she wanted this!"

"She killed Gia!" Yusuke exploded, his voice cracking through the air like a gunshot. "She isn't the Kari we know anymore, Zeri! Who knows who she'll kill if the monster she is now takes over her again!"

" _ **DON'T CALL HER THAT!**_ " Zeri threw Kuwabara off in one, violent motion, her eyes flaring in her fury.

Lightning broke the skies and Hikari looked up, her attention drawn away for a mere moment. Hiei began to move, no time to think, no reason to mourn the dead. Instinct overrode him to destroy the monster before him that wore Hikari's skin.

A different energy sliced the air, thrusting Hiei away from Hikari, yet shattering through their defenses before manifesting before them.

It was chilling to see what Hikari drew manifested before them. A billowing cloak, decayed hands tapered with sharp claws, the scent of rotted flesh and freshly spilled blood emanating from the being. Slowly, it raised its hands to push its cloak down and Yusuke could feel the bile rising in his throat and wonder if his friends were feeling as sick as he was at that moment.

Pupil-less, blood red eyes stared with within the deep sockets of its eyes, its death-colored flesh like a mask, its mouth a long, thin line that could very well reach its ears. When that lipless mouth moved, rows upon rows of jagged fangs gleamed in the light. "I see I haven't broken her enough." A low timbre rumbled from it, a sign of this creature being male.

Hikari let out a strangled scream, stumbling back, away from Hiei's blade in her attempt to back away from the creature. "Azazel!"

 _So_ **this** _is Azazel_ …Kurama's mind was stuck on the image before him, of the knotting of his insides. This was the very creature that haunted Hikari through her bloodline until it finally snatched away her very life. He could sense the same sickening reaction he was feeling was reflected in Yusuke and Kuwabara, whom instinctively blocked Zeri from view for her protection. Zeri's own eyes were wide, tremors rocking her body as she remained beside Gia's corpse.

"You've failed, my tainted light," Azazel purred lowly, gesturing a rotting hand to Hikari, who flinched. "I suppose a very fitting and very _painful_ punishment awaits you once we return to the Darkness."

"No," Hikari moaned, sheer terror lighting up her eyes. It was a reaction that was practically ambrosia to even the most sadistic of demons—something that Hiei, admittedly wanted to see in his harsh treatment of her. However, seeing it now set him in a frenzy of anger, a fierce need for the blood of this Azazel brewing within his bones.

Hiei stepped forward, aiming his katana in Azazel's direction with narrowed eyes and bared fangs. "If anyone is going to grant the girl a swift entry into the afterlife, it is going to be me."

Azazel threw his head back, a wailing, mirthless laugh escaping his mouth. "You! Do you take me for a _fool_ , Forbidden Child? Did you not know that I have seen everything this child has?"

"What the hell is making you have an attack of the giggles?" Yusuke spat angrily. Something was going to go wrong here, he could feel it, but he couldn't place it except that it involved this freak show of a demon. In a blur, Azazel was out of sight for nary a second until Hikari's scream shattered the air, causing the group to turn around.

Azazel had Hikari by her neck, gripping her with only one hand as she struggled to free herself. He brought her closer to his horrible face and Hikari turned her head away and shut her eyes. "Do you not understand? How _pointless_ it is for you lot to interfere with me?" he murmured. "I have something precious to you all in my hands, who wields power that you've only barely begun to grasp in those puny minds of yours."

"Power?" Kuwabara asked, clenching his hands. "What power? Kari could see demons but that's all she's ever been able to do!"

"Incorrect, boy." Azazel's fingers wrapped tighter around Hikari's neck, causing her to cry out in pain, as a thin trail of black began to rise from where he held her. It raised from her neck, over her jaw, toward her eyes as though the darkness beneath her very skin. "Hikari Tsukiyomi's family made a deal with the God of demons and I've awaited for a descendant powerful enough to serve my purpose. Do you see?"

"If Kari's so powerful, why were you able to overpower her, jackass?!" yelled Yusuke, his anger choking him.

Azazel laughed that horrible laugh again. "Simple, former tool of the Reikai: Hikari's powers were born _because of me_. She was able to comprehend that her power grew without losing her mind, comprehending that I grow stronger with it."

"You've trapped the girl because of a decision her ancestors made," Kurama's voice was cold. He had seen much in his life and knew what those will do for power if they long for it with maddening fervor. "You've pulled the strings in ensuring that her soul will reach you in death."

"Now you understand." Azazel dropped Hikari, gazing down at her coldly as she began to writhe upon the grassy floor, an agonized scream ripping from her throat. The darkness within her had spread, as though it were her very blood, her right eyes becoming drenched in pitch black once more. Her screaming stopped suddenly, her body ceased its writhing, as she lay there like a broken marionette.

"What did you do to her?" Zeri demanded, hysteria staining her voice.

"I merely cut her strings until we return to the Darkness. It appears my little puppet is not ready to face you in battle. Not yet, at least." With that, a yawning hole appeared beneath Azazel and Hikari and they both floated downward into the Abyss. "Farewell, for now. Soon, I will have your souls to feed on as a sea of blood covers the living realm," Azazel's voice echoed as the hole closed, taking their stolen light from them once again.

* * *

Zeri embraced Gia's body tightly, blood staining her clothes as she rocked back and forth as Kurama stood beside her in silence. She had all but lost her mind, lashing out violently at Yusuke and Kuwabara so that they don't take Gia's body and bury it. Tears streamed down the curves of Zeri's cheeks as broken sobs escaped her. Facing Hikari and facing Azazel was too much for her to handle and Gia's death at Hikari's hands was just the thing to push Zeri over the edge.

Though it maddened him, there was nothing Kurama could do soothe Zeri enough to have her relinquish Gia's body. She knew the tricks that he, Kuwabara, or Yusuke would try—as though voices within her mind were telling her—and would react none too gently. So Kuwabara and Yusuke returned to Yusuke's home to try and think of a way to overcome this new wrinkle and Kurama opted to remain by Zeri's side. He did not feel comfortable leaving her alone to mourn Gia and Hikari.

As soon as Hikari flashed through his mind, Kurama turned his gaze toward Hiei, who was leaning against the trunk of a tree nearby, nursing his wound. The demon fox had given the Forbidden Child a healing herb and Hiei had applied it himself. Hikari had dealt him a near grievous wound that would have killed Hiei if he were human. Kurama couldn't even guess what was running rampant through Hiei's mind. Hiei could have easily put Hikari back into the grave, but as they now discovered, doing so would only give Azazel more power. Even witnessing Azazel breaking Hikari before them would haunt them for centuries if they somehow managed to succeed in saving her from his clutches.

"Kurama…" The redhead turned at the sound of Zeri's voice. She had stopped rocking back and forth, but her grip was as tight as ever around Gia. "Would we really have to kill Kari? She was taken from us once and her blood wasn't on our hands…"

"Unfortunately," Kurama sighed heavily, closing his eyes, "we must. Hikari, though unwillingly, has become a threat to all realms if Azazel utilizes her to the fullest potential. If we do not, then she will have more innocent blood on her hands—just as she has Gia's."

"She didn't mean it. You know that. You _saw_ it. That _thing_ made her do this. He turned her bad." Zeri's voice was a broken sob. "She needs us to free her, Kurama…she needs us…"

Sighing, Kurama used the only thing he could in the state Zeri was in without her fighting back. He unleashed a pollen from a demonic plant to ease Zeri into a dreamless slumber, to stop her from feeling the excruciating, emotional devastation she was enduring at this moment. As soon as Zeri fell onto the ground, her grip lax on Gia, Kurama knelt down to lift her into his arms.

"Making it easy on her?" Hiei called out to the redhead, his hand pressed against his wound. His tone lacked a bite that was familiar, almost as though Hiei were suddenly…lost.

"She needs this for now. The pain she is in, she cannot endure conscious." Kurama looked down at Zeri's face, the tension relieved from it for now. "The same as you, I think."

"What are you on about now?"

"You had a chance to kill Hikari, but you did not take it. Not truly."

Hiei was silent and Kurama almost wondered if he had disappeared in the condition he was in. "That Azazel was strong. A challenge, for once, but…" he trailed off and Kurama could only guess where his thoughts went.

"You did not like what he was doing to her. That may only be just what he unveiled to us; he could be doing worse to her," he said carefully.

Hiei knew that it was worse than any death bestowed on Hikari. He could hear her voice screaming in agony and echoes of Azazel's horrific laugh tearing through his mind. He couldn't imagine what made a human scream like that…

"I am taking Zeri inside," Kurama said, walking away as he willed plants to envelop Gia's body, encasing her in a temporary tomb until she was properly laid to rest.


End file.
